


Sacrilege at Dusk

by moofin_man



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crowley is a dick, Gabriel is horny, Gen, Good brother Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Insomnia, Kidnapping, Light Torture, M/M, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Pre series, Pretty angsty too, Protective Dean, Sam Whump, Slight au kinda, Stanford Era, Starvation, homeless, ptsd sam, yeah ok au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-05-21 00:56:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 43
Words: 51,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14905449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moofin_man/pseuds/moofin_man
Summary: Sam is cold. And tired and hungry. He's been kicked out of college and is currently panhandling for any sort of cash, too stubborn to go back home after his falling out with his dad.That's when Dean rides into town.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic.  
> Give me feedback please?  
> I know I suck at writing but I'm really bored and figure: what the hell? I'll try it.

It's December; fucking december. And it's cold. So cold that Sam's fingernails are blue. His coat isn't thick enough and his muscles are stiff and sore from sitting hunched in the same position for hours. If it wasn't so cold that Sam can barely think, his piece of cardboard would say something clever. 

Right now it just says "Help me go home", not that Sam is going to use the money to go anywhere near his dad. But maybe he'll call Dean; he's not sure yet.

Sam is exhausted. His bones ache with cold and he's so mad at everything right now he could scream. The universe hates him. And it's not like Sam fucking did anything in the first place. The only thing he's ever done was be born. And it's not like that was his fault either. But nope the universe has just decided that Sam can't have one fucking break, and lives to metaphorically shove his head in a public toilet and swirly him every two goddam seconds. 

And right in cue, a black car speeds around the curb and splashes him with frozen slush. Sam can almost hear every demon he's ever sent back to hell laughing at him right now as he slings wet snow from his hands and brushes off his shoulders. He wants to scream after the car, but that probably won't help him make any spare change anytime soon. 

Luckily this isn't his first time panhandling- it's been nearly four months since he was kicked out of college- and he knows that flipping the bird at people who don't give him pocket change is not the way to do things. 

Sam sniffs and tries to hold in all of the screaming that he wants to let loose. A small whimper escapes his clenched jaw and he buries his face up to the nose in his threadbare scarf. His frozen fingers clench the cardboard sign so tight they puncture holes in the wet material. 

Sams life sucks.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel tries to help Sam.  
> 'Course it doesn't work because Sam is a self destructive ass. 
> 
> In other words: I'm still bored.

There's a coffee shop on the corner of Brass Street and Hodge. It's one of the crappiest places in town; the roof leaks and it smells like a litter box. Sams not sure how it can smell like that when all of the underpaid and disgruntled employees are constantly baking pastries, but it's not the strangest thing Sam has ever seen by far, so he lets it slide.

The owner has to pass Sam on his way home from his mistress's house up the road. Sam's usually still awake: he never sleeps anymore. So the man knows that Sam knows.

That's probably the only reason that the guy gives him a tiny styrofoam cup of piping hot black coffee. It's at half price. Which means Sam still has to pay, but at least not in full whenever he collapses in the farthest corner and puts his face down on the sticky table for two seconds. 

Sam drinks his coffee as slow as he possibly can so that he can relish the flavor. And the warmth. And that whenever the steaming liquid is in his mouth and throat, he doesn't quite feel like his stomach is still going to eat him from the inside out. 

Sam scratches his face, probably making one of his sores bleed, and takes another sip of his coffee. He holds it in his mouth for a little while so that he can pull his scarf back up and the warmth can make his face toasty for a few seconds. His beard (that he didn't even really know he could grow, but hey, at least no one will recognize him) makes up for all of the fat on his face that he's lost by not eating anything in a long time. 

Sam nestles down into himself and his many, but futile, layers.  
No one talks to him. Some of the people give him strange or tired looks because he's asked them for cash too many times. That is, until the local pastor plops himself down in the seat across from him. 

"Castiel. No."

"I haven't even said anything," Castiel protests in his irritatingly calm way.

"No," Sam sends the man a filthy look and silently hopes he won't go to hell for it.

"Look, Sam. If you'll just listen to what I have to say-"

"No! Castiel, stop. Just stop, okay?"  


"Stop what? Trying to get you off the streets? Stop trying to save you from dying? Of starvation, hypothermia, dehydration, mugging, hit-and-run?"

Sam looks down into his slowly cooling coffee. "I'm not dehydrated. I'm fine."He mumbles.

Castiel sighs and leans onto his forearms to try to catch Sam's gaze."Sam," he says patiently, "coffee is a diuretic. It makes you loose more water than it has in it."

Sam crosses his arms across his emaciated chest, tucks his knees up close, and effectively curls into a ball. His greasy, shaggy hair falls over his eyes and he closes them for a second. 

"Sam," Castiel's voice is soft "I don't understand. Why won't you let the church help you? We want to help. You need it."

Sam shudders for a moment. Then he glances up into Castiel's bright blue eyes.

"Because I'm not worth it." He whispers.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam gets his ass handed to him by angsty teens. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also, what the hell are "hits" on an archive work?

Sam's favorite corner is two blocks from the coffee shop from hell. It's near the church, nestled in the mouth of an alley, so old ladies on their way home from mass give him a few dimes. Sam would feel bad about taking money from sweet retirees, but he figures that someday they'll need an exorcism or something. 

He sits on an old milk crate turned upside down and waits for the universe to send him another "fuck you, Sam Winchester". Maybe in the form of an angry police officer or pissed off soccer mom this time. Something hits the back of his head and he flinches. 

The sun has long since set and all of the places that don't mind him loitering inside are closed. His stomach kicks his spleen irritably at the lack of food. His heart feels sluggish and his eyes can't quite focus. It's cold and Sam is hungry. He wants to sleep but he can't. He wants to cry but he can't do that either because "damn it Sam. Winchesters don't cry". There's an almost gentle nudge to his arm, which is probably only gentle because he's so numb by now. 

Really he just sits there and shakes. It isn't until probably the fourth pebble hits him that Sam looks up. 

Immediately he wishes he hadn't. 

"Hey Beggar Man!" One of the kids calls down the street. The others snicker behind him. God, Sam would give anything for a soccer mom. At least those have a little humanity left. 

Sam hunches up further in on himself, curling around his cup of change and one dollar bills.  
"Hey bastard! I'm talking to you!"

There's a sharp kick to his side. It's not hard. More like a warning. But with nothing over his ribs other than thin skin, the kick hurts more than it should. 

"Hey you filthy prostitute. You wanna suck me for fifty cents?"  
Sam has gone completely imobile, curled like a gargoyle on top of his discount perch. 

"Ew. Don't go near him, Jamie. He probably has rabies." a girl giggles. 

"Hey, you sick freak. Look when someone's talking to you."

"What's the matter, you fuck? Can't speak?" There's another kick. Sam whimpers. Why does the universe hate him like this?

"Leave me alone," he whispers "please just let me be."

The kid leans down real close to him so that Sam can smell his Axe deodorant

"Awwww. Are you going to cry? Look at him. Pathetic little freak. Hey! Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Two more kicks. One lands in the same spot as the first one. They make Sam bite his lip so hard it bleeds. He glances up finally, at the twisted face of one of the high school kids. He should be able to take them out with a single hit. But his insides are raw and his head is pounding.

Sam's right arm finally unfurls in a weak attempt to fend off any more kicks to his tender ribs. The first swipe through the air he makes is limp. The by the second, Sam's fingers hook into claws to try to feebly protect himself. 

The high school jock steps back smoothly. "Woah. Did you just try to hit me?" His glee is barley masked. "He just tried to hit me, right guys?" 

"That's what I saw," one of the other boys speaks up and a few others chorus the same answer. 

The one looming above Sam lets out a small and vicious laugh. "Well then," he states. 

Sam barely has time to prepare himself before a hand reaches out and grabs his collar roughly. It jerks him from his protective stance (fetal position, like a terrified animal) and exposes his pale and gaunt face to the cold air.

The punch comes out of nowhere. Sam swears he didn't see it before he feels the pain, sharp and angry, blossoming across his cheek. He has just long enough to bob back up a little before another one is raining down on him, this time at his temple. Then straight into his teeth. 

There's pain and throbbing. There's sparks in his vision. Sam falls off his crate and his back hits the concrete hard. The blows keep coming. He doesn't know what's being hit anymore. Only that it burns and he briefly thinks that it may never stop. 

But when they finally do, Sam doesn't know what's happening anymore. He's curled on the cold ground as his ears ring and everything throbs.

He can't move again until Satan's Breakfast Club has walked away, leaving him a bruised and bloody mess of rags and bones on the sidewalk. They took his days earnings with them. And that alone makes Sam want to sob. 

Blood is pooling beneath him; from his face, his mouth, and god knows where else. Sam is so tired, his body finally surrendering to the exhaustion and pain. His eyes slip closed. 

Sam manages to scoot off the sidewalk and be half covered by a blue tarp; sheltered by the darkness of the alley way itself. 

Sam still won't cry. Not even as his skeletal form is wracked with spasms from pain, cold, starvation, and exhaustion. 

So. That was the Universe's "Fuck You, Sam" for the night. He hopes that tomorrow's may be less... painful.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean comes to town.  
> (Oops. Spoiler. Don't worry, it's not too hard to figure out though)
> 
>  
> 
> Wow four chapters in one day. Thank you boredom!

Sam does regrettable things over the next three weeks. 

He washes the blood off of his clothes in the library toilet via repeated swirlies.  
He hides under a car from Cas so the poor preacher doesn't have to see his wounds.  
He steals a woman's pads to staunch bleeding.  
He gets into a fight with a raccoon over some half eaten Wendy's (raccoon:1, Sam Winchester demon-hunter-ghost-chaser:0)

Sam wishes that he could feel sorry for all of this, but he doesn't. He's still alive, after all. 

Which is why Sam knows something bad is about to happen. The universe seems suspiciously quiet as of late. Call it a sixth sense that he knows what's coming, because the man upstairs simply has too much fun fucking with Sam. Like "ooh. I wonder how he'll get out of this shit storm" So this time, Sam is going to be ready for the "fuck you".

The weather is the same negative sixty degrees hell that it has always been though. Which is something Sam hopes to combat by sitting at his NEW favorite corner and panhandling from tourists as they drive into the only motel in town. He thinks that he'll buy something warm to eat with the money. Maybe he'll get soup. Soup is good. 

And soup is what Sam is thinking about when a car blasts past him. It's not a splash, per say, but it's uncomfortable. 

And the car is speeding. Like it's going somewhere more important than the Roach Motel owned by Norman Bates. 

But Sam doesn't stare, he just hunches up more. Distant old school rock music shuts off with the car's engine and the door squeaks when it opens. He tries to not be that creepy, leering homeless crazy guy, but it's probably not working very well. 

There's the sound of boots crunching on gravel and snow. Work boots. The kind that would hurt if he pissed the man off. 

Not that San can help the fact that his very presence is irritating to some people apparently. 

The man walks on past him for a little and then turns back around. Sam flinches. 

"Hey. You know where the front office of this place is? I swear it all looks the same."

The voice is deep. Almost like it's being faked. But it makes San pause. Because he would know that voice anywhere. 

Part of Sam wants it to be true. Part of him wants to go the fuck home already because he's tired and hungry and cold. The other part (the damn Winchester genes, he suspects) want it to be wrong. Because that way, he can still win.  
At... whatever this is. 

Sam glances up hesitantly. Every one of his movements is a wince; jerking and uncoordinated. 

The pale gray sky is too bright for him to make out the face of the man for a few moments. His left eye's swelling is just beginning to go down, but he tries to crack it open anyway. Even after that he blinks up at the guy to try to make his weary vision line up like it used to. 

Sam is vaguely aware that his sign still says "Help Me Get Home" as it slips from his fingers. 

"Dean?" He asks quietly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have a brief reunion Winchester style (i.e. That "welcome home" ritual of throwing holy water and cutting they always do. Nothing says brotherly love like not being a demon)
> 
> I promise a sappy reunion soon.

Dean narrows his eyes in the way that usually makes grown men start to cry. 

"Yeah...?" He rumbles and Sam wants to scream. He can't possibly be that unrecognizable. Of course there's the black eye and the beard and the pale skin; the tattered clothes and the emaciated frame. But he actually took a shower the day before at the local gym. So he probably doesn't smell like a dumpster anymore. And maybe there isn't so much grime all over his face. 

Sam's brain is getting all too caught up on unimportant facts. So he shifts and starts to stand, because his 6'4 stance is one of the only things that hasn't changed. His back hurts like hell as he tries to straighten all the way up; he's been hunching as to not scare away any possible donors with his massive vertical size. 

Any intimidating effect that he could have with his sheer magnitude is pretty squashed by the fact that he shakes like a scared animal. 

Dean now has to look up at him when Sam pulls the scarf away from his face.

"Dean... it's me. It's Sam," he says, wincing at how his voice sounds like a cat with laryngitis. 

Dean's expression is a mix between confusion, horror, and rage. He moves in a flash, striking out with a silver blade before Sam can make his sluggish body move away. The knife nicks his unbruised cheek. Dean waits for a second like he hopes that this is some supernatural thing fucking with his mind. When nothing happens, he moves again, pulling a bottle of holy water from somewhere and sloshing the contents out onto Sam's face. 

Sam flinches too hard and his gut (because he no longer has abs) tenses up, causing a flare of dull pain along his ribs. Dean watches him with a skeptical eye that has lost most of its fury. 

"Tell me something only Sam would know," he demands harshly. 

Sam's eyes flicker from his brother's face for a moment as he thinks. "When I was nine, I told dad I was afraid of the dark. He handed me a .45," Dean's eyes lose a bit of the smoldering fury. The icy dread that replaces it is somehow worse. "The day after mom died, we stayed with a neighbor: Mrs. Donovan. You tried to feed me mac and cheese even though I didn't have any teeth. That was the day dad taught you how to warm up a bottle and change a diaper. It was the last time he was actually a dad to us."

There's a few more seconds of silence. It's like Dean has been given a complicated math problem he now has to solve without a calculator. And Dean always did hate math. "Sammy?" he asks, sounding a little terrified of the response. 

"Yeah, Dean. It's me." Sam rubs the water off his face before it can freeze there. Dean hesitates, before something flips and he stops searching Sam's eyes like he hopes he'll be wrong. Apparently deciding that it is indeed Sam, Dean goes full maternal instinct, and in a second, he's there, his hands fluttering over Sam's bruised cheek and purplish mouth. 

"Jesus, Sammy. What the hell happened to you? We thought you were at Stanford."

His eyes rake over his brother's form faster than his hands, cataloging every slight change, and briefly gripping his bony shoulder before letting go like the thinness of it burned him. 

The roughness returns in an instant when Dean remembers where they are. "Come on," he orders gruffly, grabbing a fist full of Sam's jacket and hauling him along at a brisk pace towards the Bates Motel. "Which one's the damn office? You're coming with me."

Sam can barely keep up. Both with the fact that his brother has suddenly just accidentally found him and that his legs are too cold to keep him from stumbling like a drunken colt over the many potholes. 

It occurs to Sam later, while Dean is getting a room, that maybe he too should check and make sure that this is really Dean. Because why on earth would the universe just give up screwing with him like that?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean has his moment of being a protective big brother. Sam is kinda along for the ride. 
> 
> Congrats to Storm89 who gets the award of Firsts (first comment on my first work) so here's the chapter they wanted. 
> 
> Any ideas on where anyone wants me to take this story, hit me up.

Their room has shitty wallpaper. It's yellow. Whoever thought yellow wallpaper was a good idea needs to be exorcised immediately. However, Sam does have to admit that it matches nicely with the vomit stain on the carpet and mass of rat traps in the corner. He is sorry to say that it's not the worst place that he and Dean have had to stay at over the years. 

If Sam were in a different situation, he might be more picky. But right now this is the first bed he's been even close to in months. Aside from the mildew-y mattress he shared with a feral cat he named Sir-Bitch-a-Lot for a week. 

Dean hauls all of his stuff into the room from the Impala in one trip. Including a half eaten Burger King (gift from God) Whopper. Sam tries not to stare at it as Dean dumps his stuff in a non-stained section of the room and goes to stand directly in front of his brother's huddled form perched on the bed. He crosses his arms over his chest like he wants to baby the hell out of Sam but needs a good explanation as to "why the fuck". 

"Sam. What the hell," he starts. "You have three minutes to explain to me why the fuck you're out there panhandling fifty miles from Stanford looking like a damn hobo."

Sam winces a little. He wraps himself tighter in his outer jacket. He's still cold.  
"I dropped out," he murmurs. 

Dean explodes. "You fucking WHAT?!"

"I dropped out, Dean."

And the older brother seethes at that. "So that's it? You just up and fucking quit? What the fuck happened?"

Sam frowns up at his brother. "I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't- Are you shitting me? You just don't want to talk about it? You're fucking killing me, man. Did you like fail a class or something? I swear to god, Sammy, if you did it's not a big deal. I didn't even fucking try to go to college; neither did dad."

"What? You think I would have dropped just because I failed a class?"

"Oh shit. No. Did- did someone rape you? College campuses are so sketchy, I swear. God, Sammy, you point me towards the fucknut who touched you and he won't be able to do much as blink without medical assistance for the rest of their miserable life."

"What? No. Dean, I- no one touched me-"

"Then what the hell happened to your face then, huh?"

Sam glares at his older brother. "No one touched me like That. Okay? There's no one to castrate. I just- I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

They stare at each other for a long moment in a silent pissing match. Dean is biting the inside of his cheek so hard that Sam can see it from where he sits. 

"Fine." Dean grits out shortly, like it causes him physical pain to let it go. Sam lets out a quick breath. 

Dean shifts from his highly aggressive "I will kill something" stance and runs a hand through his short hair. "Jesus…" he mutters. "Okay," its quiet at first, before he clears his throat and takes on that dangerously maternal look again. "Okay. First you need… clothes. Better clothes. And-and a shower. Christ, you smell like a corpse. And then you need to show me your injuries."

Dean rushes around and starts digging through his bag for a new outfit. Sam knows he should protest to being treated like a damn infant, and the fact that Dean's blood pressure is going to skyrocket when he sees the state of Sam's body. But the promise of something warm to wear that doesn't scratch his skin and a hot meal is too strong to resist. 

Dean tosses a thick sweater and jeans into his lap. "So right now, I don't trust you to take a shower without falling or shave that god awful rats nest off your face without nicking an artery-" Sam can see where this is going, "-so I'm going to help you. And you're not going to complain about it either."

Sam frowns up at his brother, but Dean just scoffs at him before hauling him off the bed and towards the bathroom. "Oh please. It's not like I haven't seen your dick before. I changed your dirty diapers for like a decade."

They stand in the shitty little bathroom. It wouldn't have fit the both of them at the same time six months ago, but with Sam's diminished girth, they're fine. 

Dean tugs on his sleeve. "Off." He commands darkly. Sam sighs and begins to strip out of his layers, dropping them on the sticky tile floor because they'll probably have to be burned anyway. 

Each layer that goes, Sam looks progressively smaller and smaller. Dean's expression gets more and more close to legitimate nausea. 

The last one is an old Def Lepard t-shirt that was Dean's at one time, but when you and your brother are effectively the same size, nobody's stuff is private property anymore. He opts to leave that one on while he loosens the rope acting as a belt and drops three layers of pants until he's just in his boxers. Sam ignores the fact that Dean is subtly checking him for track marks. 

Sam turns to the mirror where his own emaciated corpse of a body laughs back at him. He is the poster child of "below the poverty line". Pale and dry skin stretched taught over sharp bones. Flesh mottled by dark bruises. He hasn't been eating or sleeping (at all) enough for them to heal much. 

Dean tears his eyes away for a moment to run the water in the shower. It makes strange noises when it rushes through the pipes. "All of the clothes, Sammy." Dean reminds softly. 

Sam is shaking from the cold. There's barely any heat in the room, even with Dean's blood practically boiling. Even so, he strips the last pieces of clothing off.

Dean has to look away for a moment, blinking and swallowing hard. He look like he wants to say something. It's a rare thing for Dean to hold his tongue in any case; Sam just wishes that he could relish the moment better. 

"T-that water b-better be fucking boiling." Sam gets out through his chattering teeth. 

Dean looks at him. His eyes are sad and suspiciously wet. "Sammy…" he says softly. The older Winchester looks like he may cry for a few moments before he takes a shaky breath and blinks hard. "I'm not hugging you until you've at least washed off the road salt." His voice cracks. 

Sam gives a distant smile before cupping his dignity and stepping carefully into the shower. Dean doesn't touch him, but stands there with his hands out like he's prepared for a fall. 

Sam focuses on lathering soap all over everything and letting the hot shower spray warm him up. "So-" he clears his throat. "Looks pretty bad, huh?"

Dean adjusts his jaw. "Nothing a few bacon cheese burgers can't fix." He says tightly. 

Sam scoffs and shifts so that the water is hitting his shoulder, then chest, then other shoulder. 

Dean stares at his bony frame and the long shadows that it casts. The purplish bruises. "Jesus Sammy." He murmurs. Then his eyes cut up to his brother's. "We're gonna fix this." He says with a sort of grim determination. 

Sam snorts too hard for his irritatingly fragile being. He wipes his nose as blood starts to drop from it. 

"Right. Okay, sure."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean takes Sam to breakfast and they make the other customers around them really uncomfortable. 
> 
> Okay, so the story started out mostly shit but now I'm kinda proud of it (and my Tony Stark nerd reference)

They go to the crappy coffee shop. It's the first time Sam has been in there when there isn't a fine layer of silt all over him. He's swaddled in Dean's dark blue cashmere sweater and a pair of jeans worn into softness. They would usually have been small, but the amount of weight that he's lost has combatted that easily, so he can pull the sleeves over his frozen hands.

Sam is so elated by the very fact that everything around him is so damn soft and gentle that he doesn't even smell the cat piss when he first walks through the door. 

Dean hasn't stopped hovering around him. He's always touching him, like he's afraid that he'll either shatter or disappear.

They sit at a corner booth.  
Dean orders two full southern breakfasts: eggs, bacon, pancakes, biscuits, orange juice, coffee. Not in the crappy take out styrofoam that Sam usually gets his coffee in either. It's a legit mug made out of ceramic. He lets out a happy noise as the waitress sets his drink down. She gives him a strange look like she thinks he's that homeless creep who hangs around, but isn't quite sure. 

Dean had tried to shave Sam's beard completely off, stating that with a beard and being tall, he looked like the older one. But Sam was still shaking too bad when he got out of the shower, so the end result is a Tony Stark-esque goatee. 

"How does this place smell like cat piss?" Dean stage whispers as they wait for their meal. Sam smirks into his coffee. 

"It's just one of the many charming features of this town. Along with ninja raccoons and angsty teens," he says and cups his hands around the mug to warm them. "So how are things with you and dad?"

"They're good, I guess. Find a case, research the hell out of it, down a six-pack, kill a monster, hit the road. You know the routine."

Sam snorts, making sure to be gentle about it this time, and rubs his arms to warm them up. "Yeah, just a regular Tuesday with the Winchesters."

The waitress comes back to their table with two heaping platters of food. The very smell of it makes Sam's mouth water. He thanks her earnestly for it, making sure to flash his puppy eyes. 

"Take it slow, Sammy," Dean reminds him. "By the looks of it your, stomach might not be used to so much."

Sam spares him a glance as he spears three sausages at once and shoves them in. The flavor… oh fuck. Sam has never eaten anything so amazing in his life. He moans a little. Loud enough for the couple at the table next to them to glance over. 

Dean looks like he's caught between the fact that it's hilarious to see his little brother weirding people out with sex noises, and that it's fucking depressing Sam is this excited about a few mediocre sausages. 

And damn does he shovel in food like he's a starving man. Not that Sam gives a rats ass about anything other than calories right now. Fuck everyone who's looking at him strange; this breakfast is a damned religious experience for him.

"Woah. Woah, hey Sammy. You need to slow down." Dean warns and reaches for his hand to stop the desperate feasting. 

Sam flinches, and stops. Dean withdraws and leans back in his chair. "Hey. Just slow down okay? You can finish it later. Drink some water."

"I know how to do this," Sam snaps, but he notices for the first time the uncomfortable fullness of his stomach. 

"Well you sure had me fooled." Dean bites back. They try to stare each other into submission for a moment. Sam yields first.

"Sorry," he deflates a little and tucks back in to eat slower this time, carefully dipping the pancakes in syrup before eating them. 

Deans sighs the kind of long-suffering sigh that he always does whenever his brother is being a moron about something. "It's okay," he assures, even as he rubs his face tiredly. "I just… you won't tell me anything. I mean, if you don't want to talk about Stanford then fine. But can we at least discuss the "beaten to hell and back" look you're going for?"

Sam looks up from his food and lets a dim smile flit across his face. "Well, I am a trendsetter," he tries weakly.

"Damn it, Sam. Don't joke about this."

"I just don't see why it's such a big deal. I took a few hits, okay? I'm fine-"

"No. Nobody hits a Winchester other than a Winchester and gets away with it!"

"Then what about all the fucking supernatural beings that beat the hell out of-"

"And we send those fuckers right back to hell for it. Now you tell me who the bastards are so I can go rip their lungs out with my bare hands!"

"No. Dean-"

"Tell me!" Dean slams his hands down on the rickety table so that the dishes clatter. Sam knows that it actually has nothing to do with those kids who decided to use him as a punching bag for all of ten minutes. But Dean is angry; he's angry about Sam being out there on his own, he's angry that his brother didn't call him, he's angry that Sam won't tell him anything.  
Dean lets out a growl and grinds the heels of his palms into his eyes. 

Sam pokes at his eggs with the blunt side of a butter knife. The whole place has gone eerily quiet, but is now starting to pick up the chatter again. 

A man walks over to their booth. He clears his throat. "Is everything alright over here?" He asks. 

Dean's jaw clenches. "Yeah," he grits out "we're fine." He cuts a glare up to his brother. 

Sam thinks that staring at the way the egg yolk flops around whenever he pokes it is far more appealing than meeting the murderous looks Dean is sending him. 

"Oh. Well, I just wanted to-"

"I said we're fine!" Dean snarls, whipping around to glare the guy into sitting his ass back down. 

Sam goes to make apologetic eyes at the poor man. But then…

"Wait. Castiel?"


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel and Dean have a pissing match. 
> 
> I'm thinking some serious comfort coming from Dean in the next chapter since they're now forced-cuddle buddies (I am the plot master. Ill use the shitty motel for what I want. mwhaha)

Castiel has that expression on his face like he's just seen someone sin. His cold intensity is challenging Dean's own glare, and if Sam didn't know any better he would think that they were silently fighting over him. 

"Uh. Dean! This is Castiel. He's the local pastor," Sam causes enough of a distraction for the two to not rip each other's throats out. "Cas, this is-"

"Dean. Sam's older brother." Dean sticks out his hand. Cas looks at it with the same amount of distaste that he would look at nude photos of his grandmother.  
But he takes it all the same. 

Sam swears he's like a magnet or something for highly irritable and stubborn people. Cas has been on his case since the day Sam showed his face in town. He'd actually been about the only person to be nice to him.

"Dean." Cas says the name like it has a bitter flavor. 

A few more seconds of tenuous silence before Sam is desperately trying to fill it. "Yeah, Cas has been helping me since I came to town."

Deans quick glare tells him that was apparently the wrong thing to say. 

"Helping you?" He scans Sam's neglected body like he can see every hurt there and it pisses the hell out of him. 

"Trying to help," Cas amends quickly. "This great big lug won't take any of it."

Sam looks down. Dean clears his throat. Most of his rage is diminishing by now. "Well, Castiel, I can assure you that my brother is in good hands now." Dean tries for a smile. 

He looks more like an animal baring his teeth to protect what is his. Castiel actually doesn't flinch, just levels the older Winchester with a glare hot enough to melt iron. "That's good." He says coldly. "I'm glad someone is."

The pastor sighs tiredly. "I should go." He says. Sam can almost hear the "yes. You should" that Dean wants so badly to say. But he bites his tongue. 

Cas rests his hand gently on Sam's shoulder for a brief moment. It's more comforting than it should be. "Take care, Sam." The man says before he turns. 

Dean glares after him. 

"Stop." Sam commands. 

"What?"

"Stop being such a bully about it. He tried to help. I said no."

Dean leans foreword. "And why is that, Sam. Hm?"

Sam doesn't meet his eyes. 

"Whatever," Dean mutters as the waitress brings the check and several boxes for their food. "I haven't slept since Chicago. And you aren't looking too well rested either. So we're gonna go back to the room and sleep. Okay?"

"You only have one bed." Sam protests. 

Dean stands up and gathers the boxes. "So?" He says, and waits for Sam to take one last sip of coffee. "Like I said: nothing I ain't seen before."

Sam frowns.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cuddle/whump scene everyone has been waiting for. Sam has a nightmare and Dean is all "baby, I got you" (platonically). 
> 
> Oof. I'm really gonna regret then when I gotta drag my ass out of bed at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow, so enjoy. 
> 
> I'm thinking maybe Destiel as a pairing (but they currently hate each other so damn much it'll be chapter 500 before they do anything). So let me know what you guys want.

Dean sleeps like a damn octopus. His limbs are either fucking everywhere or all over Sam. But at least he's quiet and warm; his metabolism puttering away like a fricking space heater. 

Sam doesn't actually mind sleeping with Dean. It's nice to know that even in his sleep, the guy is still in "mother bear" mode with him by the way that he sleeps closer to the door and with his whole body cradling Sam.

Sam just can't sleep. He's on edge. He's nervous. And when he does sleep, it's plagued by nightmares of fire and guilt. But maybe tonight he'll try for a few hours. Simply because of the reassurance that Dean is here and Dean will protect him. 

But in the end, he's not surprised when he still dreams. 

It starts innocuous; Jess sitting on the bed as he comes home from his part time job. It's not sexy or anything; she doesn't have on makeup and wears her brother's football jersey and camouflage underwear because her dad is in the army. But its Jess. And he loves her. 

"You're home early," she says.

Sam smiles tiredly. "Yeah, I know,"

She stands up to greet him, having to stand on her toes to effectively kiss his lips. "What's the occasion?" She asks. 

Sam shrugs and kisses her back. He's happy and content and-

No. Something's not right. He can feel it. Something's off. 

"Sam? What's wrong?"

"I don't know-" he pulls back, opening his eyes. 

And suddenly she's not in his arms. She's on the ceiling. There's a single moment of "what's she doing on the fucking ceiling?" before it sets in. Because he thought that he could escape. He thought that he could get away from all of the demons and ghosts and just general asshats out there. But he should have known that he couldn't. He shouldn't have been so stupid. And now the girl that he loves is going to pay for it. 

In the distance, he can recall with horror the description of his mom's death. Sam's stomach is a complicated sailors knot of panic and dread and "what the fuck" as he realizes that this is going to go down just. Like. That. 

He can only stare in his own agony as her stomach splits open and her intestines start to spill out like bloody Christmas tree garland. He can do nothing but scream and sob as flames spill from the mutilated body of the girl that he loved; her eyes still open as if to blame-

"Sam!"

Dean shakes him awake. 

Sam jolts up with a sharp gasp that's so sudden it makes his vision spark like it's the goddam Fourth of July. He grabs out and hooks onto Dean's abnormally large biceps. 

"Sam. Sammy? Are you alright? What the fuck was that?"

Sam is gasping for breath and digging his bony fingers into his older brother's arms. He knows that he's scaring him, but he can't stop. It takes him a little while to notice that the whimpers and soft cries filling the room are his own. 

Above the sound of his brother's panic, Dean is murmuring reassurances. They're both sitting up now, and Sam is gripping so tightly that it'll leave post-sex-like marks all over him tomorrow. 

Dean grips his hollow cheeks and pets his hair for almost ten minutes before the panic starts to taper off into something manageable. 

Sam loosens his grip and then draws away. "I'm fine," he whispers "I'm fine. I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, 'm okay, 'm okay, okay, okay, okay-"

"Sammy."

Dean sits in the middle of the probably-bed-bug-infested sheets. Sam can't see his brother's face because of the back lighting from the noon sun outside, but he's not sure he wants to either. He probably has that dumbass crease in the middle of his forehead that he gets when he's concerned. Distress is not an emotion that Dean Winchester wears well. 

"Sam." Is all he says. 

"I'm fine."

"You were thrashing around."

"I was dreaming about kickboxing."

"And screaming."

"It was terrifying kickboxing. I didn't want to be there. I was going against a demon."

"Who's Jess?"

Sam feels nauseous at the mention of her name. Suddenly, their mid-morning brunch seems like it wasn't such a good idea. And if there's one thing Sam never though he would be doing: it's regretting a meal. 

"Dean," he looks at his brother's shadowed face. "Please don't make me talk about this."

Dean doesn't say anything for a long moment. Then he shifts and grabs the blanket, holding it up for Sam to crawl back under.

Sam doesn't complain whenever Dean apparently decides that six inches is far too much space between them and drags Sam so close that their chests are flush against each other. The older brother has to scoot up until his hair brushes the headboard in order to tuck the younger beneath this chin; to which he makes an annoyed grumble. 

Or maybe he's irked because Sam is still shaking, he can't always tell. 

It's probably the shaking because after a few minutes, Dean's hand starts to move. It rubs up and down Sam's back so that his skin stays a pleasantly warm temperature. 

"Shhhh…" Dean whispers, as his little brother shivers in his arms. 

"W-why are you hugging me? You n-never hug anyone." Sam murmurs stubbornly through chattering teeth, even as he curls around his brother's torso. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't faze Dean at all. 

"Because you need a hug. And I only have chick-flick moments in dark hotel rooms."

"That sounds… r-really sketchy."

"Mhm. And if you ever tell anyone about this, you won't be able to walk for six weeks."

Sam smiles briefly. "I wondered what you'd done to my b-brother."

"Shut up, or you'll be hugging a pillow and I'll go sleep next to the rat traps."

"Hmm… pillow wouldn't talk so much."

"Go back to sleep, Sammy."


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean pays Castiel a visit. Sam's not much in this one. 
> 
>  
> 
> Woo. Ok. This one was kinda hard. Fought me all the way there.

Dean is not happy to say the least. 

"Not happy", in fact, is the understatement of the millennium. He wants to fucking shred something with his bare hands. He wants to dismember someone. Slowly. Until they are no longer physically capable of screaming for mercy.

Someone needs to pay for his little brother's torment; even if Dean has to overturn every rock to find the person. Or monster. Dean isn't too picky right now. 

At two o clock in the afternoon, he unwraps himself from Sam's sickly body. He tries his best not to look at the bloodless skin, skeletal frame, and horrid bruises. It's kinda hard to ignore all that though.

The boy- not that Dean should really call him that- seems to sense the abandonment immediately; tossing and squirming like he would as a baby. His face contorts into something pained. It has Dean scrambling for extra comfortrers and pillows to keep him calm. 

He leaves a note and a sandwich and slips out of the motel. 

There is only one church in town; Dean had laid awake in bed, holding his little brother, and listened to the bells ring at noon. 

The front door is unlocked, so Dean lets himself in. It smells musty inside, like old books and decades of dust. It's dark; the only light is the natural stuff that filters in through piss colored windows. Rows of church pews line up like dominoes, just waiting for Dean to "accidentally" apply too much force to one.

Dean slides into the second row from the front, resting his forearms on the one in front of him. He looks up at the cross hanging at the front, then bows his head.

It's not hard for Dean to draw the bastard out from wherever he was hiding. 

"Forgive me, father, for I have sinned," he says. 

"You know, usually you don't just walk in. And usually you do this kind of thing in a confessional."

Dean hadn't even heard the creep approach, and yet there the guy was, sitting right next to him in the god awful beige trench coat.

"Mr. Dean," Castiel says. "I'm sorry, Sam never told me your last name."

Dean clears his throat. "Ah. Well, Sammy can be pretty quiet sometimes." He says as he shakes the man's hand. 

"What can I do for you?"

Dean pulls himself up to be broad and imposing. Intimidation has always been his favorite tactic after all. 

"I would like to know why I stop at a motel and find my a baby brother begging snobs for pocket change outside," he glowers, all forms of pretending to be nice gone "I want to know why your definition of "helping" is letting Sammy waste away until he'll shatter if he sneezes too hard."

Castiel's expression doesn't even flinch. The man has probably the best poker face Dean has ever seen on a living person. "As much as I would have liked to help more, Sam clearly expressed his desire to be left alone. I was honoring those wishes." 

"Honoring those wishes? Goddam it. Honoring his wishes has nearly gotten him killed! What the hell's the matter with ya?"

"I would have stepped in before any permanent injury could take place."

"How is his chronic malnutrition and anemia not classifying as a permanent injury?"

Castiel sniffs. He seems suspiciously unconcerned. "He will recover, with time and care." 

Dean growls low in his throat. He's had enough of this bible thumping jackass for the day. "Kiss my ass, you bastard. I'm taking Sammy home. And if up ever come near him again, I'll make sure that every breath you take will be medically assisted agony." 

Castiel doesn't even look at him. He stares ahead with his piercing blue eyes like he's watching something that Dean can't see. "Understood." He says after a moment. 

Dean huffs and stands up. He makes his way out into the icy gray light. It's raining a little, not cold enough to snow quite yet. 

He pauses to flip off the church before he heads on his way.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much useless fluff. 
> 
>  
> 
> So maybe Sabriel? Idk.

When Sam wakes up, Dean is gone. At first there's the cold shock of it, then he slowly realizes that yeah, Dean never was one to stick around. Sam just wishes that maybe his brother wouldn't treat him like a one night stand. 

His chest is uncomfortably tight as he gets up and pulls on an extra hoodie, trying to console himself with thoughts of "at least I got a shower and a meal out of it" before he finds the note and the sandwich that his brother left. He instantly feels bad about doubting Dean, seeing as there's no way someone else left that sandwich: it's nothing but white bread, cheese, and salami. Definitely Dean. 

Sam eats the sandwich in twenty seconds flat. 

After that, his stomach has a kind of uncomfortably bloated feel when he presses on it. He has no regrets though. 

In the bathroom, Sam finds the razor and finishes taking off the rest of his beard now that his hands don't shake so much. He takes it apart when he's done and uses the blades to chop off some of his hair so it's shorter and more manageable. 

He's vaguely aware that he still looks like he has been alone in the wilderness for the past two years but he doesn't care at this point. At least he looks a little more like himself than he did with the beard. 

He's watching Jerry Springer when Dean gets back. He's not really even paying attention to the tv in the first place and completely abandons it when his older brother marches through the door. 

Dean throws a plastic bag full of protein bars and beef jerky at him.  
"Got ya some of the good shit they have at the dollar store here." He says, ripping into his own jerky and kicking off his mud covered boots. Dean crawls onto the bed next to Sam. He pulls the comforter up over his shoulders like a cape so he can drape it over them both. 

There's a few moments of silence where neither one of them is actually paying attention to the show, just staring at the screen. 

"So," Dean says, "who else is there in town worth meeting?"

Sam takes a bite of his chocolate protein bar and settles further into his brother's body heat. "Cas is pretty much it. No one really talked to me much." He thinks for a moment. "Well, there's Ruby. She's a hooker. We used to stick around the same areas. But she got mixed up in some drug stuff and I haven't seen her for a while."

Dean tenses a little at the idea of Sam getting friendly with a prostitute, but says nothing in the end.

"And Gabe. He's a street magician who hangs around the park when it's warmer. He used to give me candy. Which sounds really pervy, but I always checked for needle holes and it was a good way to get quick calories. I think he knows Cas too, but I'm not sure how. He's a nice guy, really."

Sam pauses. He wonders if he should tell Dean about Gabe's schoolyard crush. The little guy was flirtatious with everything that moved, but he seemed to hold Sam in special reverence; stealing quick kisses on the cheek and cheesy winks that made Sam's face burn. He had promised to be back from his little excursion south in time for Christmas. 

Sam quickly decides against dropping the bomb that he swings both ways on his brother. Besides, the memory of Jess is currently killing any other potential relationships with the way it rubs him raw. 

"Sammy?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Anyway. There Crowley too. He runs the pawn shop. But he's also messed up in a bunch of illegal shit." Sam shudders. Fucking Crowley, man. The guy was a bonafide creep."Don't ever go near Crowley." He finishes lamely.

Dean shifts like he knows there's a story behind that, but doesn't protest, thank god. "Fine. No pawn shopping for me, then." He grumbles.

Sam frowns, " Dean, I'm serious."

"So am I!"

Sam snorts. "Whatever."

He sighs and leans back into Dean's protective warmth. His stomach is full and he's warm and he wants so badly to believe that this is going to get better. Part of him believes that it will, but the other part still holds out, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And when it does, he knows it's bound to be a pair of cleats or nine inch heels to stab him in the back.

Sam has slept far too much already today, and he knows that if he falls asleep again, he'll be thrown back into his own personal pit of nightmares. He leans against his brother and closes his eyes anyway. 

And if Dean notices the obvious cuddling, he doesn't say a damn thing about it. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean takes Sam shopping for new clothes and protects him from jackasses. 
> 
>  
> 
> Idk. Much like Sam, I have no idea where this is going ;)

It occurs to Sam later that he has no fucking plans for this what so ever. Absolutely nothing. None. 

He knows rationally that Dean will go back to their dad; go back to hunting. Because the man cannot stand being in the same state for more than a few days. Dean is an adrenaline junkie; he doesn't know how to settle down and have a normal life, because he's never had a chance to actually see one. In Dean's mind, it's unfathomable. 

But Sam can't go back to that. He just can't. He doesn't need to thrill of having Casper trying to rip off his face every town he visits. 

So Dean can't stay, and Sam can't leave. It appears he has met a crossroads. For now he thinks that he'll smooch as many free pancakes off of his brother as humanly possible and see what happens next. 

It's been two days since Dean sprayed him with muddy slush on his way into town, and Sam can already tell the only thing keeping his brother from moving on like a tumbleweed is that he thinks that Sam needs him more. 

He probably does, seeing as Sam hasn't noticed the garish Christmas decorations until just now. 

And good god, are they everywhere. Probably have been since Thanksgiving, but Sam spent that holiday huddled up with Ruby under someone's porch; apparently no one wants a hooker or a street beggar around when they're supposed to be stuffing their faces with turkey and listening to mom and dad tell embarrassing childhood stories. 

Cas had orchestrated a thanksgiving dinner for the poor at his church, but they had both agreed not to interrupt the festivities and take a meal that could go to an impoverished child. Even amongst the poor, people like them were outcast. 

"Sam. Pick out a shirt."

"Why? I have your clothes, and my many layers to boot. I think I'm good."

"Those are gross and thin. I'm burning those later. And you can't always use mine; I need them, unless you want me to walk around butt naked."

"Dean-"

"Pick out some fucking clothes or I'll do it for you."

Sam pouts and ruffles through the shirts as Dean wanders off. Some of them are actually not bad. The band shirts remind him of his older brother, so he lingers a little more on those. 

A crash from down the isle makes him flinch so hard it nearly gives him another nosebleed. He has to stand there for a few seconds and stare at the woman who spilled her shopping basket just to reassure himself it's not anything to be afraid of. He goes to help her when she glances up at him. 

A bag of bright plastic beads has spilled open all over the grimy linoleum and Sam herds them all into a small pile. The woman squints at him for a second. 

"Hey, aren't you the homeless man who hangs around here sometimes?"

Sam freezes, because what the fuck, who asks that kind of thing? But he's too polite on her behalf to say anything. "Uh. Yeah. I-I mean sometimes-"

Her eyes dart around nervously for a fraction of a second. "What are you doing in here? The owner got on your case for loitering a few weeks ago. He said that he'd 'throw you out in the snow and beat you until you'd have to crawl away' if he ever caught you again." Her brow is wrinkled with worry. 

Sam had honestly forgotten about that. There are about eight discount second hand shops in the area, and half of them want him dead, while the others don't care if he lives or dies. 

"O-oh. Yeah. It's fine. I-I'm not loitering or anything. I-I have money."

"Really?"

"Um. Yeah."

The woman stands back up and Sam follows suit. He pours the beads as well as a good bit of grime back into their package with shaking hands. 

"Well, just be careful." She tells him, appraising his figure with a critical eye. With that, she spins on her heel and takes off; probably towards the front where she can watch the drama unfold. 

"So I'm thinking AC/DC and Queen. Because you didn't choose any apparently." Dean says. 

Sam startles badly and whirls around to see his brother standing there with a pile of clothes hanging on his arm. "Sammy?"

"Wha- uh. Oh. Yeah." Sam stutters eloquently. 

Dean watches him like a vulture for a few seconds before he swings around and starts off for another isle. "Come on then, I'm not your damn clothes rack."

Sam trots along loyally behind his brother, racking his brain for a few minutes trying to figure out how to get around the owner who usually works the cash register on weekends. It takes him until the shampoo isle to realize that even if the guy does say anything, Dean will rip him a new one in less than twenty seconds. 

When they get to the front, Sam tries his best to hide behind his brother. The owner is running the only checkout open since it's Sunday, and all of his teenaged employees are home watching cartoons or porn. 

He's a disgruntled old guy who looks like he would rather be burying bodies than doing this job. He rings them up without issue and only glances up to make sure Dean is getting out the appropriate credit card. 

That's when his eyes hone in on Sam, cowering behind his brother and begging to god that he doesn't get recognized. No matter how much he doesn't like this guy, no living creature deserves Dean's unfiltered fury. 

The old man stares at Sam long and hard. His eyes get more and more narrowed as the seconds pass. When Dean is done signing, he looks up expectantly for the receipt. The owner holds up his hand instead. He points at Sam. 

"I thought I told you never to come back in here, boy."

"I-uh. Um. Y-you did, sir. B-but-"

"Then why the hell am I lookin at yer ugly mug, huh?"

"Well, sir, I'm-uh. I'm not um loitering?"

Sam looks to Dean like a lifeline. 

"Now hold on just a minute-"

"Shuddup," the owner interrupts. Dean looks at the man for a few seconds of stunned silence. 

"Now I told ya I'd best not be seeing yer face in here again, ya filthy rat. I don't sell to street whores and don't want the likes of em scaring away my honest to God, good, working, customers. I told ya and yer little pals to stay the hell away." 

Sam doesn't know how, but one of his hands has ended up fisted in the back of Dean's leather jacket. Somehow, they're almost the same height when Sam is cowering and shaking. 

"Yessir," he whispers. But Dean is quick to rectify that. 

"Now wait just a goddam minute." He growls. Sam can feel his brother tensing like he's about to go against a vampire rather than an eighty-some year old shopkeeper. 

"Am I actually hearing this right? Are you chewing out a paying customer? I'll tell you what this is: this is goddam harassment! We're paying for this shit, and you're treating my brother like this?"

Sam can see the woman from earlier standing in the corner, watching this unfold. She looks pleased that Dean is tanning this guy's hide. 

"Yer brother is nothin but a dirty bag of shit who can't keep a damn job."

"You take that back right now before I rip your tongue out and shove it down your throat."

Suddenly the woman is by Sam's elbow, tugging on his sleeve. He can see in her eyes that she knows this is going to get messy real fast. As much as he wants to stay in the safety bubble provided by his big brother, Sam also has no intention of being in the vicinity when Dean rampages. 

He lets the woman drag him outside as the yelling starts to increase. 

"I should get all of this shit for free for my troubles here-"

"Trouble? You and that flea infested stray are nothing but trouble! I's seen him consorting with harlots and tricksters-"

"You don't know nothing you old, senile, bag of shit!" 

The door closes behind Sam and the lady with a soft ding, barely heard over the insults. 

The woman sighs and pulls on some fluffy mittens. She looks a little familiar, as if she's one of the moms that Sam has seen herding a gaggle of children. As if to prove this, she fishes around in her bag for a bit and pulls him out a chocolate bar and a juice box like he's a five year old and it'll fix everything. Not that he's complaining, as they is on the curb and share the candy. 

"Your brother look after you much, then?" She asks. 

Sam snorts "Like a guard dog. He raised me."

She nods into the distance "That's good."


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Sam whump, but it's more like residual health issues. Poor Dean is just trying to help his bro. 
> 
>  
> 
> Anyone want to give me prompts or ideas, go right on ahead. I've got nowhere to be and nothing to do :)

Dean comes out long after the woman has left. He's eating M&M's and looking damn well pleased with himself as he downright swaggers over to his brother and drops his leather jacket over Sam's hunched shoulders. 

"At least tell me he can still walk," Sam begs. The old man is a dick, yes, but he doesn't wish permanent harm on the guy. 

"Hm. Maybe after a few months of PT? I don't know."

"God. You're relentless."

Dean slings the bag of clothes over is shoulder like he's santa and smirks. 

"Damn straight I am."

"That's not a compliment."

"It is if I take it as one."

Dean tosses the bag into the back of the Impala and gets in the driver's seat. Sam casts one last look at the store. He can't see anyone inside. Dean waits patiently for him to get in before cranking up the music and zooming down the road. Sam tugs the worn leather tighter over his bony frame. It smells like Dean's dollar store aftershave and blood. 

"You know I could've taken you to a different store. You didn't have to face that ass just because I drove you here."

"Honestly, Dean. I didn't remember. A lot of the shop owners don't like me. I forget which ones which."

Dean's knuckles go white on the steering wheel. "Is everyone a dick in this place?"

"Yeah pretty much. Charlie is pretty nice. So is Gabe. Castiel is a good guy, but other than that…."

"I don't want you around that self righteous prick."

Sam stops, "Wait. What? Dean, you can't just-"

"The hell I can't."

"What? No, what did Cas ever do?"

"Exactly. He hasn't done anything."

"No, Dean," Sam sighs and rips a hand through his hair in frustration. He's too angry to wince at the amount that actually comes out. "I told you, Cas wanted to help. I was the one who said no."

Dean glares at the road like he hopes to burn holes in it with his eyes. "And anyone who knows you knows that sometimes you have to-"

"But he didn't know me!"

"And does that make it right?!" Dean stomps on the breaks at a stoplight. It makes them both jolt forward, only to be caught by the seatbelts. "Have you seen yourself, Sammy? Do you actually want me to list off everything that's wrong with both your physical and mental states right now?!"

Sam grits his teeth together until he tastes metal on the back of his tongue. "Damn it, Dean. I'm not a fucking five year old. I'll talk to whoever I damn well want to talk to." He snarls. 

"You can't even fucking take care of yourself!"

"I'm alive, aren't I?"

Dean hits the steering wheel with his palm so hard the dashboard rattles and the radio flickers to life briefly. "Barely, Sammy," he grits through his teeth in a snarl. "You are barely alive. You were a sleep-deprived, hypothermic twig when I picked you up. You still have four week old bruises that are as black as day you got them,"

The light turns green. When they don't move, the car behind them beeps. Dean rolls down the window and turns to the car. "Go the fuck around!" He yells. Sam doesn't know if the driver is just fed up with them, or can actually see the straight up homicidal fury, because the Mazda makes a hasty escape. 

Dean turns back to his brother. He sticks up an accusing finger to point directly at Sam. "Your nose is fucking Niagara Falls of blood if you breathe wrong, you have sores fricking everywhere, you're always cold even though it's a sauna in the motel room. And don't think I didn't notice that handful of hair you just pulled out, but I'm nice, so I wasn't going to mention it. Don't even get me started on the two toenails that I found in the trash this morning."

"Dean-"

"You want me to keep going? How about the fact that you wouldn't let the goddam preacher help you. Even though that's practically his fucking job. God, Sammy, what kind of a martyr complex do you have that you think you deserve to die so slowly as this? What makes you think that you, of all people, doesn't deserve help, when you have helped so many yourself."

He pauses. Sam has inched back with every word until he's pressed against the door like a scared animal. It's not that he's afraid of Dean; he knows his brother would never hit him when he's too worried that Sam will just fall apart without any help. Dean lowers his finger, realizing that he had leaned closer and closer into Sam's space. He sits back straight in the drivers seat. 

"Damn, I don't know what the fuck happened at Stanford, but I'm gonna fix it, okay?" He's lost the fire in his tone. It sounds almost apologetic, but still determined to do the right thing. 

Dean stares at Sam for a long moment before a car behind them beeps and he starts to drive again. It's slow- slower than Dean has probably ever driven- and a clear sign that he knows somewhere in the back of his mind that he fucked up. 

Sam digs his fingers into the door handle and stares blankly out the window of the Impala. 

"I'm just trying to keep you safe, Sammy."

"Fuck off." There's no power behind it. The insult is limp at best, but it at least returns some of the normality of their relationship. 

Dean snorts, but doesn't reply. He pulls into a parking space at the motel, and Sam gets out before his brother can lock them both in to have serious "chick-flick" moment. Like they didn't just have one. 

He barricades himself in the bathroom for the next four hours and prays that when he opens the door, Dean will be gone. 

Apparently the universe knows he doesn't mean it, because his big brother is still there when he finally gets out. 

"Thank god. I've had to pee for like an hour and a half."


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a short chapter. Feat. my boy Kevin Tran and Sammy's past activities of dubious legality. 
> 
>  
> 
> It's an AU so I can do what the hell I want, and I couldn't resist dropping Kevin in there.

It's five in the morning, and Sam can't sleep. It's not as though he doesn't want to, it's that he can't bring himself to close his eyes. If he does, then he'll see Jess. And if it's not Jess, then it's someone else. After a life of hunting the supernatural, Sam has a lot of reasons to have nightmares. 

Dean conked out halfway through an episode of Dr. Sexy around one, and Sam has been watching infomercials since then. But now he thinks that he'll go out and get his brother breakfast. As an apology for yesterday, and because he doesn't want to hear Dean bellyache about the smell of cat piss. 

He leaves a note of course, because Dean would turn the whole town over trying to find him if Sam just disappeared, and slips out. 

It's early, and cold. Sam knows that few things can wake Dean up before his alarm, and one of them is the sound of someone starting up Baby. So he walks. 

It's a much more pleasant trip than usual when he's wearing Dean's snow boots and three layers of thick sweaters under a fluffy parka. His knees are the only part of him that are truly uncomfortable, and only because he walks so stiffly that the bones knock together with each step. 

The shop is open, as it always is. Sam is convinced that the owner never sleeps, except for maybe when he's with his mistress. It's too early for many people who aren't doing something illegal to be out and about, so it's just Sam and two other customers, probably nursing hangovers. 

"What can I get for you?"

It makes Sam a little nervous, because he's never actually spoken to the owner. They never had reason to. 

"Um. Yeah. Hi. I'll have the breakfast quiche and three plain waffles. To go."

They have complimentary coffee in their room already. The man rings him up, and Sam pays in cash. 

He stands by the counter to wait for his food until he gets dizzy and has to sit down in one of the sticky chairs. That's when someone promptly drops into the seat across from him. 

It makes Sam flinch horribly. Immediately, his hand goes to his nose to stop any bleeding before it starts. The pimply teen sitting opposite to him lifts one eyebrow in an unamused expression. 

"Jesus, Kevin. Warn a guy."

"Oh please." Kevin rolls his eyes and sips his Mountain Dew. Sam eyes the drink, but far be it for him to preach about health to the kid. 

"So is this a social chat, or are you in trouble again?" Sam risks asking. 

Kevin studies the older man for a few moments. "I can't tell. Has something changed about you? Are you styling your hair differently?"

"Fuck you, Tran. What do you want?"

The guy shrugs nonchalantly and pushes the salt shaker back and forth across the table. "You know I don't do the whole 'messenger' thing, Sammy. I'm a book keeper, not fucking Twitter, okay?"

Sam nods. Kevin Tran keeps records of all the shady deals that go down in numerous gangs. He documents the activities for everyone from Lucifer to Crowley, making himself untouchable and indispensable to all the bad people in the area. It's genius, really. Incredibly dangerous to get there, but now that Kevin is a fixture of every gang, no one can touch him without starting a war. 

He also has a soft spot for Sam.

"So this is a one time thing, you hear? I ain't got time for shit like this."

"Jesus, Kev, it wouldn't be this hard if you didn't drag it out."

The high schooler fixes him with a filthy glare before continuing. He reaches down and digs an envelope out of the waistband of his khakis. Sam makes a face but takes it anyway. It's white, with no markings and sealed tightly. As soon as Sam's fingers touch it, he can feel dread settle in his gut. If someone could get Kevin to take a break from his work long enough to deliver a letter, then it sure as hell isn't anything good. 

"One time thing." Kevin reminds him. Sam tucks the envelope into his coat just as the owner rings the counter bell. "Order's up, man." He says, placing two styrofoam boxes on the counter. 

By the time Sam has collected them, Kevin is disappearing out the door.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The manliest foot massage between Sam and Dean you will ever read about.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, thanks to Letbuckyeathisgoddamnplums  
> (Awesome name btw)  
> I now have a bunch of new prompts for this fic and will probably be up until four am writing (or until my eyes are permanently damaged. Whichever comes first ;))

Sam doesn't get a moment of privacy to read his letter. Damn Dean and his overprotective nature. 

"Fuck, Sammy. Did you seriously walk all the way to that Litter Box? It's like twelve degrees out! Here, give me the boxes. The only possible excuse for going out like this is to get me pie."

Dean wrestles his little brother out of the snow crusted parka and into the swivel chair by the desk. 

"I d-did get you p-p-pie. I got you quiche. It's like b-breakfast pie."

"Quiche is not pie, Sam. Don't lie to me like that."

"B-b-but it's got bread and f-f-filling-"

Sam winces as Dean gets down and fumbles with the laces on his ice cold boots. He should protest to being treated like a damn damsel, but he can't feel his nose and his feet are frozen stiff. 

"By that definition, cream filled doughnuts and hot pockets are pie too. And I will be damned before I consume either of those on the pretenses that they are as good as pie."

"'M kidding. I got you w-waffles. Quiche is m-mine."

Dean has to literally shake the boots from his brother's feet. When he brushes up against the socked appendages, they're ice cold. Sam hisses at the touch. 

"Fuck, Sam." He starts to peel off the right sock. 

Sam jerks, "Wait. Dean, stop. P-please. Just leave them; they're f-fine."

"Um. Wincing when I barely touch them is the opposite of fine."

"Fine, okay. Just leave the sock on. You'll m-make it worse."

Dean sighs, but his hands leave the top. He settles down on the stained carpet like he means to be there a while, with his legs stretched out and Sam's foot cradled in his palms like it's something special. 

"Um. What are you doing?" Sam has just barely gotten the shivering under control enough for his teeth not to chatter when he tries to talk. 

"Eat your breakfast. Don't want you to have hiked out there for nothing." Dean growls. 

Sam stiffly reaches for the boxes and locates the quiche. It's two slices of spinach and mushroom that have long since gone cold, but Sam's not picky. He once fought a raccoon for half-eaten Wendy's, after all. 

He yelps a little when Dean starts to move his hands. It's highly uncomfortable; both the frozen state of his toes and his brother currently holding them, but Sam is too hungry for that to get in the way of eating. 

It takes him a while to realize exactly what Dean is doing, damn near caressing his foot like he's a professional masseuse. His hands burn wherever they touch at first, but after a while of gently working circles into the sole it begins to feel better. 

Sam wiggles his toes a little and looks down at his brother, halfway through his last slice of not-pie. He swears he sees Dean blush, if only for a fraction of a second. 

"Don't make it weird with eye contact, Little Brother." 

Sam goes back to eating as Dean moves to the other foot, mumbling about washing his hands in boiling water once he's done. 

The left foot isn't nearly so bad, having had time to warm up a little. Dean still shakes his head at the chill of it. "You should really go to a doctor."

Sam closes up his box and puts it in the trash. "I thought the rule was no hospitals."

"Yeah. No hospitals. But clinics ask a lot fewer questions. And in a shady-ass town like this? On the outskirts of a city? I'll bet they won't ask any at all."

He pats Sam's foot and gets up off the gross carpet. "I really think that you should, Sammy. You're not in good shape." Dean says as he heads to the bathroom washes his hands. 

That's when Sam gets it; the foot massage fiasco. That was Dean's apology for yesterday. Lest that Dean Winchester, O Great and Fierce Hunter, actually say it out loud. But Sam will take what he can get. He'll have to settle for a sub-text "I'm sorry, baby brother. I just want you safe, please forgive me". Much like Sam bringing him waffles (and making himself walk through snow and ice to get them. But that's a whole pile of psychological shit he's not going to be touching anytime soon). 

Dean puts his waffles on a napkin in the microwave and turns back to his brother. "I know it's not probably what you want to be doing, but you know me; I can't do anything medical." He says. 

Sam narrows his eyes in a classic Bitch Face (TM). He's quiet as Dean gets the waffles out and comically almost burns his finger as he tries to separate the pile of three in order to douse them in syrup. 

"Alright," Sam says slowly. Dean looks up. 

"Wait, what? Really?"

"Yes, but-" Dean's face falls, "only if you say you're sorry to Cas. I know you probably went to tell him off-"

"Only because the guy had it coming!"

"-which is my point. If you go apologize, we'll go to clinic."

Dean glares at him, long and hard. He seems to be weighing the options; his dignity or his little brother. But, in the end, it's not to hard of a choice for the oldest hunter. 

"You are a cruel man, Sam Winchester."

Sam sits back and smirks. "Great. But I'm not going in with you to apologize."

The squawks of indignity that his brother makes are enough to make Sam actually smile for the first time since Stanford.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's that I see, yonder in the distance? The first, beautiful blossoms of a Destiel relationship in the makings. 
> 
>  
> 
> I'm thinking maybe go all out and add some fan art to this fic (if I can bend my computer to my will like that. Bitch is uncooperative sometimes like that)

Fuck Sam. 

That underhanded, back stabbing maneuver he pulled? Dean would be goddam proud of it, if his little brother hadn't pulled it on him. 

Dean Winchester does not apologize to anyone other than family; he doesn't have time to when he's busy ganking sons of bitches. 

But here he is, standing awkwardly inside of the dusty old church that he proudly flipped the bird to not three days ago.

Because pride or Sam? Definitely Sam. Every damn time. 

"Hello, Dean. How may I assist you today?"

Dean startles because how the fuck does he do that? Where did he even come from? He eloquently chokes on spit and launches into a small coughing fit. The man beside him watches like it's incredibly fascinating. 

"Hey, Cas-Castiel," they aren't at the nickname level yet, that much he knows.

Castiel, for his part, takes his eyes off Dean. They drift around in the distance lazily. Come to think of it, the guy could very well be blind, for all Dean knows. 

"Ahem. So. Yeah. I just wanted to say… about yesterday… okay, listen." 

Castiel makes eye contact with him briefly. It makes Dean uncomfortable for a second because he thought that he was immune to all puppy eyes after living with Sam for so long, but damn. Castiel's big blues carry a certain innocence to them, like he sees hope in everything. 

Which, by all means, shouldn't be possible; the man runs a church in the middle of Slumtown, USA. 

Castiel is quick to look elsewhere, but then he glances at him again, this time, from beneath his black lashes; almost shyly, "I am listening, Dean."

"I… I was… wrong. Okay? I was wrong. About you and your intentions and about Sam. Alright, trust me, I know better than anyone how stubborn he can be-"

Dean scratches the back of his neck. Damn. Why is this so hard? 

"And while I don't think that it was at all okay for you to just not do anything when he's obviously out there wasting away in zero fucking degree weather-" Dean stops himself before this apology can turn into a rant about everything he would have done differently. 

"-I understand why. And I… I'm sorry."

Castiel waits a few beats, studying Dean as if to see if he really means it.

Dean prays that Castiel sees the sincerity, because he would rather die than repeat that. 

"I understand." Cas says eventually. His voice is deep for someone with Bambi eyes like his. "Apology accepted."

And then his mouth quirks up. Just a little. And it's not quite a smile, but….

Dean's mouth goes dry. He doesn't know why and it makes him want to bang his head into a wall a few times. 

Castiel looks away again, "I have brothers too," he states, almost distantly. The way he says it; there's a story there, but Dean's not going to pry. 

The man looks down. He runs a thumb along the edge of his beige trench coat to smooth it out. "They have hurt me, and I have hurt them. However I would still lay down my life in their stead." He looks up again, towards the cross, expression edging on pain. "Sometimes, you must let those you love fall. Even though it may hurt both you and them. Just so that they will know what it is like, and so that they will know that you are always there to pick them back up."

Dean watches Castiel for a moment. Despite the man speaking as though he has had a bible literally shoved down his throat, his meaning isn't lost on the hunter. 

"Yeah." Dean agrees softly, "even if it hurts."

They spend a few minutes in companionable silence. 

Castiel's eyes constantly wander, while Dean's never stray from the man beside him. He's really forced to smother his Big Brother compulsions as he takes in the wrinkled look to the man, and the haggard expression upon his face. Cas looks tired, purple circles beneath his eyes and skin a bloodless, sleep-deprived color. 

Usually, Dean's urge to defend everyone isn't too bad, but lately its been off the charts. Probably all the stuff about Sam. Fuck, he's practically PMS-ing like a teenage girl. He wants to wrap Cas up in his leather jacket and cart him away to safety like he did with Sammy the other day.

Dean clears his throat. "I uh-"

"You have to go," Cas interrupts. It's not rude, but like he knew that's what Dean was going to say. The man in rumpled business clothes fixes the hunter with one last look; 

"Sam is waiting."


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam goes to see Dr. Anna Milton at a Shady-Ass Clinic and bitches the whole time about it.  
> Feat. Surprise Whump! at the end because my Cinnamon roll Sammy isn't going through enough already, right?  
>  
> 
>  I bullshitted all of the medical stuff. Probably 0% of it is right, but it sounds legit :) Lets all just pretend I know what I'm doing!

The clinic is cold as balls.

Even with two sweaters and a parka and Dean standing so close that Sam can smell motel soap on him, he still shivers.

"Sam."

"No."

"Saaammmm."

"No. Fuck you."

"Samuel Win- ah. Scott. Samuel Scott, You take that goddam coat off right now and get on the scale."

"Fuck. You."

"So help me, I will find the nurse's station and drug your ass until you can't so much as-"

"FINE! Jesus, Dean, just gimme a second."

Sam strips off his top coat and the thick, black, cable-knit sweater that he wore right beneath it. 

The cold is more than uncomfortable, its downright painful. Whatever is left of his muscles lock up and a tension headache pounds at his skull when he tries to keep his teeth from chattering. Sam has to take Dean's shoulder in an attempt to not pass out right in front of the nurse as he stiffly climbs onto the scale.

The nurse gives him an impatient look. "You're going to need to let go of your boyfriend."

"Brother! Older brother!" Dean squawks and shoves Sam's hand off.

Nurse Ratched shrugs and pokes around on the scale for a bit before it begins to weigh him. Dean subtly leans closer to make out the numbers as they appear.

112.4 pounds.

Dean chokes on his spit. 

All that Sam can think is that... that isn't good. He's 6'4; the nurse just measured him. He should weigh around 150 at the lightest. 112 is...

Dean apparently goes into overdrive. It takes him a few seconds before he's snapping into action like an enraged mother bear; he grabs Sam's shoulders and drags him close into a side-hug, pulling the coat over him in the same motion. But if anyone were to ask, Dean isn't hugging him, he's simply sharing body heat.

They walk stiffly and slowly down a stark white hallway. Two of the rooms they pass have someone screaming inside. When Sam gives his puppy eyes to the bored nurse, she sighs; "Withdrawl and a bullet removal. They're fine." before letting the brothers into a room at the very end of the hall. Sam sits in what looks like it used to be a dentist chair a long time ago and tries not to feel twitchy about it.

Dean ignores the plastic waiting chair and instead chooses to stand menacingly in the corner with his arms crossed. He keeps mumbling "112.4. one hundred fucking twelve!" under his breath as the nurse gets out her (marginally functional) equipment and lays it out on a rolling tray.

She doesn't look happy to begin with, but her frown keeps getting deeper and longer as she takes his temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and listens to his lungs. The only sound in the room is the scratch of her pen against the notebook paper as she writes down her findings. Sam swallows hard and tries not to panic about her obvious judging.

Nurse Ratched leaves a few minutes later, clipping the paper to the outside of the door for the doctor to review. "It cold be a little bit," she informs them on her way out. "Dr. Milton is a very busy woman. Lots of people in this town don't want to go to a hospital, and you haven't been shot seven times. So, you're not a top priority."

Sam looks back at his brother with a panicked expression, both at the thought of being there longer than absolutely necessary, and at being shot seven times.

"But,'' she continues, "As I understand it, both the local Bible-Thumper and a couple of gang's Middle-Man put in a call for you, so she'll try to hurry. There's cards and Gatoraide in the cabinet. We'd prefer if you didn't try to smoke or stash drugs in here, but...." she shrugs like she's tired of trying to stop patients from doing that. Sam calls a weak thank you as she closes the door.

"I'm assuming the 'Bible-Thumper' is Cas, mind explaining the Gang Middle-Man, though?" Dean says as he makes his way over to the cabinet above the sink. The Gatoraide is the white kind, but Sam's not picky. He shrugs as Dean inspects the deck of cards as though they might have herpies.

"That's probably Kevin."

"Kevin?" Dean finally settles on putting on rubber gloves before he touches the cards; handing a pair to Sam before he pulls over the plastic chair and medical tray to shuffle on. "Is this Kevin a-"

"He's a high schooler, Dean. He's not a threat. He literally introduced himself as 'Kevin: Advanced Placement' the first time I saw him." Which is only half the truth; it had been 'Kevin Tran: Advanced Placement, Book keeper, Middle-Man. So if you try anything, seven different gangs will road-haul your ass, we clear?'. But Dean doesn't need to know any of that. He looks unhappy as it is, studying his brother as Sam shivers and pulls the coat over himself like a blanket.

They play Rummy for what feels like hours. There's no clock in the room, but Dean keeps making faces every time he checks his watch. When Sam gets tired of playing games, he curls up in the chair with his back towards his brother. Dean settles for several games of solitaire. Neither of them talk; Sam's too afraid that his teeth will be chattering enough to make him stutter on every damn word. Dean doesn't seem to be in a talking mood anyway. He's been moodier than usual after being forced to apologize to Castiel earlier. Like that was so damn hard to do compared to fighting a shape-shifter or something.

"Were you in trouble or something?" Dean asks finally. Sam jumps. 

"Was I what?"

"In trouble. Did you get in trouble at Stanford? Is that why you left?"

Sam curls up tighter. His brother isn't even looking at him, still studying his game of Solitaire. "I told you I don't want-"

"Sam. Please. I'm not asking much. Just... should I be worried? About anything- anyone- coming after you?"

The younger Winchester snorts bitterly "Always about the mission, huh?"

Dean looks up sharply. "No," he snaps, "this isn't about the mission. Or about hunting. I want to know as your older brother. Are you safe now? Did someone human hurt you? Did you get in trouble?" He looks so worried. Sam has always been told that he has a set of killer doe eyes, but when Dean really wants to use his own, boy can he turn them on.

"Yeah," Sam says "You could say that there was some trouble."

"...Sammy-"

There's a knock on the door. Dean looks away and clears his throat, wiping any emotion other than irritation off of his face. "Come in." he calls.

Dr. Milton, it turns out, is a young, thin woman. She seems to be barely out of medical school; if she even went. She has a kind face though, so Sam can see where she and Cas would probably get along. She doesn't look like someone who just got done ripping bullets out of a gang member at all aside from a suspicious splatter of blood on her sleeve. She smiles at them, and of course, Dean's sexuality is instantly perked.

"Hello, Sam. Dean. I'm Dr. Anna Milton. Everyone just calls me Anna, though." she shakes their hands and snaps on a pair of rubber gloves. "I see you've had some Gatoraide, that's good. What seems to be the problem today?" She pulls the rolling stool up to the side of the chair opposite Dean so that she can talk to both of them. She looks over the paper Nurse Ratched left her, and her smile wavers just a bit.

"Mostly Dean being an ass. I'm fine." Sam tells her and glares at his brother. The older Winchester scoffs and crosses his arms over his chest.

Anna clears her throat. "Well..." she hands the paper over to Dean- probably so that he can appropriately justify his mother-henning with science- as she gets out her stethoscope. "Your body temperature is pretty low, and I mean really low. The average is about 98, and yours is 93."

Dean shoots his brother a look, as if to say 'see? you're sickly. let the hot doctor poke around'.

"Your blood pressure is also very high. This is probably from both not eating much and being cold. Actually, from your body weight, it looks as though you haven't been eating at all," she sends him a look and tugs gently at his makeshift blanket to signal that it needs to come off. Sam grudgingly complies. Her stethoscope is cold against his chest as she reaches beneath his sweaters to place it directly onto bare skin, even though he's pretty sure she could have heard everything just fine through his clothes.

"He was homeless." Dean offers. Dr. Anna nods as if she already knew that. But what does Sam know; she's probably seen him panhandling around before.

She turns to another packet- the one he filled out in their closet-like waiting room earlier. "You listed some things like being sore and tired and your hair beginning to fall out. Those are probably due to malnourishment. Things like sores could be due to exposure." She lifts his sweaters to get a look at his ribs and prods at them gently. "These have healed nicely. Extended bruising though... probably anemia. Again, a side effect of starvation."

Dr. Anna checks for a concussion. She sticks things in his ears and pokes at his gums and feels around at his internal organs. Generally, all places that Sam doesn't really want people investigating. She talks to Dean about how he's not the worst case she's ever seen, but his condition is not to be taken lightly. He needs nutrition. Not hamburgers and milkshakes (fucking doctors, taking the fun out of life).

"Rest. Recovery. Eating. Lots of fluids. Take it slow, stay out of the cold, and you should be fine." She smiles at Sam with those same hopeful eyes that Castiel has.

"Great," Dean chirps as he helps his little brother sit up, "see, Sammy? That wasn't too bad."

"One last thing though," Anna stops them before the brothers can beat it back to their shitty motel to follow her orders which Dean most likely interpreted as 'sleep, Dr. Sexy marathons, and smoothies from McDonald's'.

She frowns for a second at the paper as she double checks it, and then taps his knee, "Can you take off your shoes and socks for me?"

Sam grimaces. Fuck, he knew she was going to ask that. It wouldn't be so bad if Dean wasn't right there watching like a damn hawk. It's not like Sam doesn't know that his feet really took a beating over five months, he just doesn't really want his brother to know that. He'd been so close to getting away, too.

At first, Sam had left Stanford wearing tennis shoes. And those hadn't been a problem back in July, until he walked so far they got holes. After copious amounts of duct tape, he had realized that they simply weren't going to last, and had been forced to find a new pair. The only problem was that there were few 6'4 men who were willing to part with a good pair of special-ordered shoes. Sam had had to settle for a few sizes smaller.

"Uh... those are fine. Really. You don't need to check them." He assures her and pulls on his parka.

Dr. Anna gives him a tight-lipped smile. "Here it says that you had some toenails fall off. I just want to check and make sure everything is alright."

Sam shakes his head quickly, "No, really-"

"Sam," Dean glares at his brother, "we aren't leaving until she looks at them."

Sam presses his lips together and calculates the odds of getting past both Dean and the Doctor. They aren't good chances. He sighs eventually and props his feet back up on the lower part of the chair. Sam hisses and winces as he pulls the snow boots off gently as possible and begins to peel away the sock.

He doesn't want to look at them; hasn't since at least November. There's a heavy silence in the room.

"...Fucking hell. How... how the hell can you even walk, Sammy?"

Dr. Anna blows out a breath "....Okay.''

The three of them sit there and look at Sam's mangled feet. Skin has been chafed away into open and raw sores. Three of the toes that broke in October didn't heal right and jut out in odd angles. In total, his feet look like a pinched, swollen mass of pain.

"You..." Dean swallows, looking like he might throw up, "you only have eight toes."


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The blossoms of a Destiel relationship!! It's mostly fluff though.
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry about freaking you guys out with Sam's poor feet, but it was too hard to resist :):)

It's like house arrest. Fuck, it's like goddam bed arrest.

Dean, his self-appointed parole officer, has him positioned with his feet propped up against the head board. Sam's pretty sure that he looks like a dead spider with his limbs in the air, trying to watch Dr. Sexy upside down, and drinking protein shakes for every meal.

It's been three days since Dr. 'How-Could-You-Not-Tell-Me-About-Your-Feet' benched him, and he's already about to crawl out of his skin from staying in the same damn position. Every time he tries to move, Dean attacks him with antibacterial cream and bandages; shoving him back down and threatening to handcuff him there. Like Sam isn't miserable enough already.

Dean has yet to leave the motel for more than a few minutes so far, deciding that he doesn't trust Sam on his own. But, eventually he will run out of beer or bandaids or porno and have to make a supply run. When he finally does, Sam is going to be up and doing jumping jacks; even if it (or Dean) kills him.

The older hunter has been sat at the desk cleaning his gun meticulously since nine am, and keeps cracking his neck like he's getting antsy. It can't possibly be much longer until he dies of cabin fever. 

When there's a knock on the door, Sam takes it as an excuse to flip onto his stomach and let his feet down for a bit. Dean jumps up, one of his newly cleaned guns ready to fire, and sends his brother an impatient look at all the 'moving without assistance' that Sam just did by completing half-barrel-roll .

His stiff posture relaxes once he checks the peek hole. "You've got a visitor." He says, turning to grin at his little brother, barely visible now beneath a mountain of blankets. "It's Cas. I guess my apology was top notch after all."

Dean stuffs his .45 into the elastic band of his boxers. Sam's not too sure that he put the safety on, but he's not going to say anything since the door is open before he can so much as point out that Dean's still in his underwear. 

Castiel looks exhausted; even more than normal. The bruise like bags under the man's eyes have damn near left permanent crevices all the way down his cheeks. 

"Hello Dean." He doesn't exactly try for a smile, but his eyes have a burning intensity as he watches the older Winchester. Which Sam thinks is weird. Because he's never actually seen Cas look at someone for more than two seconds before, and if he's being honest about it, its creepy.

Sam can also see the exact moment that icy wind from outside hits his brother's bare legs and Dean realizes that he's in nothing but boxers and a t shirt. It's a contained wince due to the blow his pride takes. Maybe it'll bring him down a couple of pegs and he'll realize he's not the Enforcer of Lord Anna Milton's every whim.

Castiel seems oblivious to it. He extends a casserole dish covered in foil like it's baby Simba in 'The Lion King'. "I have been told that it is customary for one to give a gift of food to the ill." 

Dean hesitantly takes it, trying to hide his near nudity behind the door. "Uh. Yeah. Thanks." He sets it down on the desk next to his gun cleaning kit. 

A blast of wind comes into their once-toasty room. Sam instantly starts to shiver. "God, Dean. Let the guy in."

"Right. Of course. Sorry." Dean hustles to hold the door open and let the other man in before shutting it.

Sam props himself up on his elbows so that he can see over the massive pile of pillows and blankets that Dean has cocooned him in. "Hey, Cas."

"Hello, Sam. How are you doing?" He crosses the bed and reaches out as if to touch him, but the motion is aborted halfway through. "I spoke with Dr. Anna. She said that you will most likely be able to make a full recovery." Castiel takes certain interest in examining Sam's heavily wrapped feet. He gently brushes one of them as if to test how much pain they are really causing. It tingles briefly, but seeing as Dean has him pumped full of pain meds, he can't feel them too well anyway.

"I'm fine, Cas. I would be better if my brother let me go to the bathroom on my own, but I guess somethings are just too much to ask for."

Dean squawks. "Hey! Dr. Milton said not to push your luck. So that's exactly what we're doing here: taking it as slow as possible."

"Dean, you have never done anything slow in your life. You always drive twenty miles above the speed limit."

"Yeah. And with good reason, too!"

Castiel watches them rib each other with fascination, like he's watching two extinct species interact for the first time. The snow stubbornly crusting his trench coat drips onto the dirty carpet. 

Sam blows at a string of hair stubbornly hanging over his eye. It comes right back to the same spot. "Whatever."

Dean clears his throat. "So, Cas. What did you bring?" He lifts the tip of the foil to peek inside.

"Shibuya Honey Toast."

"Shi-what now?"

"Shibuya Honey Toast. It is a Japanese dessert. Dr. Milton asked me to bring you something that would completely contradict your current diet plan." He makes a face. "She said it was because you would be 'highly irritable due to lack of sweets'. Of course, she also told me not to say anything about her involvement, but…." Castiel closes his eyes briefly. It's the first time either of the brothers has seen him blink. "I am… very tired."

Dean pulls out the desk chair and offers it to the man. "Jeez, Cas. What's got your feathers in a twist?"

Castiel doesn't sit. But he does flinch ever so slightly at the expression. It's not something that just anyone would notice, but the brothers exchange a quick glance.

"My brother is back in town. He is… quite the trickster."

"Yeah," Dean grins. "Little brothers can be the worst." He sends Sam a meaningful look.

"Oh no, my brother is older than I am. Even though he is… significantly shorter and more… enthusiastic about life. I am the youngest of my siblings."

There is a small smile that flits across his face as he speaks of his family. For a moment, he doesn't look like he's been consuming coffee like it's oxygen and trying to keep Ghettosville from going to hell. While Sam would argue that a piece of toast is more enthusiastic than Castiel on any given day, its great to see the guy smile once in a while.

Cas's ever wandering gaze suddenly stills on Dean. His eyebrows draw together in confusion. "Don't you usually…" he stares at Dean's bare legs and tilts his head to one side. 

Sam tries his best to smother his laugh into his arm as Dean's face heats up in a sudden and furious blush. The older Winchester has a stray pillow held tightly over his crotch. From where Castiel is standing, he probably looks like he's completely nude beneath it. Castiel's eyes rake their way back up to Dean's embarrassed expression before he looks away. And maybe Sam imagines it, but the tips of his ears go a little pink.

He clears his throat. "I must go. Before my brother causes another mess." He opens the door in order to slip out, but pauses. "I wish you the best in recovery, Sam."

"Thanks, Cas."

As soon as the man is gone, Dean chucks the pillow at his brother. "You're a bitch, you know that? How could you let me answer the fucking door in my underwear?"

Sam just grins. "Hey! Don't take it out on me! I didn't do anything? How was I supposed to stop you when you already had the door open?" 

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe throw something at me? 'Hey, Dean. Might want to put on some pants!'"

"Hey, you're the one who trapped a pillow over your crotch like you were hiding an erection." Sam stops and looks down. He squints. "Wait a second. Were you actually-"

Dean makes a hasty retreat into the bathroom. "No! Oh my god, don't be stupid, Sammy. You're disgusting, you know that? Quit thinking about your older brother's dick!"

"Holy shit, Dean. Did Cas actually give you a hard-on?"

"No! Why would he-that's just-ugh! I'll be out in like...twenty. Or thirty. I have to shower off your gross suspicions."

Sam gets out of bed as soon as he hears the shower start up.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another nightmare because poor Sammy can't catch a break. 
> 
>  I promise some fluff next chapter to combat the feels in this one :)
> 
> Also, thanks to everyone who takes time to comment! It really means a lot, and I might not always respond, but I do read them all. 
> 
> I'm always open to suggestions for where to take the story, so if you have any ideas, or if you find something that makes absolutely no sense, then hit me up!  
>  Thanks guys:)

Her eyes are open. 

Jess's eyes were always blue, but with the light from the fire and whatever the hell is sticking her to the ceiling, they look piss yellow. 

And she's laughing. At least, Sam thinks she is, but it's so hard to tell through the smoke and the heat. His head pounds and it's so fucking hot. He wonders if this is what hell is like. If it is, then he'll stop right here and confess his sins. 

He scrambles from where he had damn near collapsed onto the floor at the sight of her and tries to crawl to the door. It doesn't quite work; his feet are blossoming in pain and sluggish although he can't see anything wrong with them. They straight up won't cooperate, so he has to drag his body along. He may only weigh 112 pounds, but he can feel every ounce now. 

He wishes that it would go faster; every second he spends in there, the stronger the smell of burning flesh becomes. It's making his eyes stream with tears and every time he opens his mouth he chokes on the stench. 

But Sam can hear her laughing; her voice echoes in his ears. The girl he loves, perverted into his worst nightmare. "Jess… Jess please."  
The next claw at the floor he makes comes away leaving bloody streaks. But it's not his blood, it can't be, he knows he's not bleeding. It has to be her's. 

"Sam?"

He's awash in it. It's everywhere and it's sticky and it's hot. The smell and the feel make him gag. Sam stops trying to crawl away and writhes on the floor, trying to scrape it off but only succeeding in smearing it further into his skin. It's too deep now; he knows he'll never be able to wash it off. It's everywhere: under his nails, on his face, in his hair, coating his tongue, and dripping down his throat. He's panting heavily in an attempt not to cry out until it stops working and he draws in a deep breath to release a ragged scream. 

"Sam. Sam!"

No sound comes out. Even with his jaw unhinged and his chest heaving, there's no noise other than his own heart in his ears and Jess's once beautiful voice. 

"Sam! Wake up!"

Dean has his shoulders in a firm grip as he shakes him awake. Sam gasps like he's just come up from the bottom of the pool. 

"Hey. Hey, are you ok? You were having a nightmare there, Sammy."

Sam wants to tell Dean he's fine, but can't do anything other than cough out dry sobs and shake. 

"Hey. Hey. Shh. You're okay. It was just a dream."

"N-n… n… no."

Sam twists out of his brother's grasp and claws through the sea of blankets to get to the bathroom. He makes it to the toilet before he throws up. 

He hasn't eaten anything solid since the doctor black-listed everything except nutrition smoothies, so it's mostly water. His body is having absolutely none of it though, and continues to jerk with suppressed heaving. 

"Woah. Woah. Hey."

Dean is there. Sam can't take the time to look up, but he knows that his brother is approaching as one would a delirious animal. Which seems like an accurate description of how Sam feels right now. 

He feels the first brush of Dean's hand against his head. It's cool and dry; mostly like Dean himself. Sam doesn't know if it's to comfort him or to pull his hair away from his face in case of more barfing. He thrashes. 

Dean shouldn't touch him. He's filthy and Dean… Dean can't touch him. 

"Get out!" He screams, lifting his head from where it was hanging practically inside the toilet. 

"What?" Dean pulls away sharply. "Sam-"

"Get out!"

His brother hesitates. Dean obviously doesn't want to leave him, but maybe it's the desperation in his brother's eyes or the rapid heaving of his brittle chest because he backs away. The bathroom is small enough that when Sam's long limbs straighten out all the way, he can kick the door closed. 

He tries his hardest to throw up again, but there appears to be nothing left short of coughing out the organ itself. Which Sam thinks might currently be an appealing thought.

Sam doesn't know how he makes it to the shower, but he does. It must be the Winchester brand of determination, even if it does only get him sprawling in the bottom of the tub. The spray is hot needles on his skin. He doesn't wash, just lets the stream run over his skin. He knows that it'll never be enough; there isn't enough water on the planet to be able to wash all the blood off. But Sam Winchester will be damned if he doesn't at least try. He stays in until the steam makes it hard to breathe and he can't cry anymore. It takes him a long time curled up in the corner to become aware again. Of that it really was just a nightmare. Unfortunately, his extreme reaction to his brother was not. 

Eventually he has to get out of the shower, though it takes a while of mental prep before he can raise a shaky arm and turn off the water. He wraps up in three fluffy white hotel towels to dry off and brushes his teeth twice. When Sam looks in the mirror, he almost laughs at what he's become; what a shell of a person. At least he still has the sense to not break out into hysterical giggles because Dean probably doesn't think that he's completely fallen off the wagon yet and laughing to himself won't help that any time soon. 

Sam silently hopes that his brother is asleep again so that he won't have to deal with this until morning. He's tired and scared and honestly Dean is a lot better at cuddling when he's unconscious. 

He puts his old clothes back on- not sure how he was able to get them off in the first place, but there's now a ripped sleeve- and opens the door. It throws steam out into the dry heat of the main room. Dean looks up from his laptop and is instantly on his feet as Sam stumbles out and flops onto the bed, face-first into the comforters. 

"You... you okay?"

Sam nods. The blankets smell like him and Dean and laundry detergent. It's better than blood, he supposes. 

"You took a shower. With all of the bandages still on." Dean will forever deny it, but his voice comes out kind of shrill.

Sam nods again. 

Dean doesn't say anything as he circles the bed and grabs his brother's ankles. He unwraps the right foot first, the bandages fall away into soggy heaps on the floor. "It's looking better." He offers after a moment of inspection. He takes his time, poking at the toes and testing the tenderness of the sores like he has a PhD in the matter. "A lot better, actually. Not so purple on the heel."

Sam draws one of the pillows close to him and hugs it tightly. It's Dean's. It smells like leather, beer, and daddy issues. A few months ago it would have reeked of sex. Sam wonders what happened.

"I take it you don't want to talk about it."

Sam offers no response. He would rather cut out his own tongue and sacrifice it to Julie Andrews than discuss this. 

"You know, you can't keep it inside of you forever. Eventually, the bad stuff always catches up. And when it does, it's nice to have someone batting for you."

Sam sniffs. His brother wraps his injuries carefully. One wouldn't suspect that Dean Winchester could be so gentle with all of his angry looks and raw muscle. Turns out he can be tender if he wants to.

Dean doesn't reapply whatever salves he had on Sam's feet before. It's nearly three am anyway, they'll be up in a few hours, so what's the point. The older Winchester is going to insist on a re-bandaging before breakfast to satisfy whatever foot fetish he's developed. 

When Dean is done, he sighs and gathers the soaking wraps from earlier off the floor. They smell like a musty basement when he deposits them in the trash can near his brother. 

Sam rolls out of the middle of the bed and onto one side so that Dean has room for all of his nightly octopus-ing. 

Dean turns off the light and mutely climbs in behind him, throwing an arm over his brother's stomach to draw him close. 

Sam can't help the whimper that escapes from his carefully sealed lips. Fucking emotions, man. Fucking sleep in general.

Dean tugs him even closer, until he can hear his brother's heartbeat, and gently shushes him. "It's alright. Just sleep."

He doesn't want to sleep. He doesn't want to see Jess again; not like that. He wars with himself for a minute. Maybe getting the bare minimum off his chest could help for at least a few hours of dreamless slumber.

Sam rolls over and burrows into his brother's chest. He grips the fabric of Dean's shirt tightly and bows his head under the elder's chin. "I loved her." He whispers.

There is a beat of silence. "What happened?"

"She died."


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candy canes are red,  
> Sam's feeling blue,  
> Gabriel is horny,  
> And Dean is too.  
> Let the Sabriel BEGIN!!
> 
> Thought you guys could use some fluff and antics after the angst show that was last chapter.

"I thought that you were all about me being healthy and stuff now."

"I am."

"Then what's this?" Sam gestures to the extra large to-go cup of steamy hot chocolate. It's got the works: giant marshmallows and cinnamon and at least an inch of foam.

Dean's response is a pissy glare over the rim of his coffee mug. "Your Christmas present. Merry Christmas, bitch."

"Christmas isn't until tomorrow-"

"Shut up and enjoy it, Princess Samantha."

Sam smothers his grin into the drink. Dean tucks in and begins to eat his cheeseburger across from him like a hyena. "You know, for a place that smells so..."

"Horrific?"

"Feline. I was going to say feline. You're sure they don't have cats in here? Anyway, my point is, the food's not bad."

The coffee shop has been decked out in last-minute Christmas decorations: a few strings of red and green lights on the front counter, some sparkly candy canes in the window, and a limited time only Christmas cookie special. The owner runs the cash register in a sweater that says "Ho Ho No", so Sam suspects it was the employees who bothered to deck the halls in discount festivities. 

After the night that he and Dean both had, the older Winchester has finally decided it's time to get out of the motel for a bit so that the cleaning lady can half-ass her job. He still insists that Sam be pushed around in a wheelchair like he doesn't have feet at all though. Which irritates the hell out of the younger brother, but he's not going to complain and risk his free-time being revoked. The two of them must look like shit, because the owner gave Dean free coffee and extra fries. 

"We doing anything for Christmas?"

"Yeah. Sitting in the Roach Motel and letting you heal."

"No. I mean like actual plans."

Dean sips his coffee and shifts in his seat. He has circes under his eyes, and Sam suspects that he didn't go back to sleep after the nightmare. "I don't know. Probably call Bobby and Dad. I suspect you won't want to be there for the second one though, so maybe I'll do that one today." He snorts. "Not like the old man will know the difference." He takes a bite of his burger. "Why, you got any specific plans that you don't want me to know about?"

Sam shrugs. In all honesty, he thought that he would see if Castiel needed any help with the Christmas rush. Maybe poke around town and try to find Ruby so that she doesn't have to spend this hoiday under a porch as well. Nothing says shitty like spending Christmas cold and alone. Dean wipes his mouth. "Hold that thought." he commands, and gets up, making a break for the grimy little bathroom in the back.

Sam stirs his hot chocolate and steals a french fry from his brother's plate now that Dean isn't around to bitch about it. He can't help but wonder exactly how long all of this will last. He had thought that they would at least make it until after the new year, but if Dean wants to call their dad... Sam knows that the drunken bastard will coerce his brother into another hunt. In the end, Dean will leave him; he's going to have to. As much as he loves his little brother, he loves the adrenaline more. There's no possible way to get him to stay unless every god forsaken demon in hell has relocated to this shit hole. And Sam highly doubts that Castiel is a demon.

He jumps when something lands in his drink, sloshing a little bit of it out. He looks down, suprised. There is a whole ass candy cane sticking out of his hot chocolate. What the fuck.

"Imagine my suprise when I come home, and my favorite Sammoose isn't on his designated corner."

Sam's head shoots up. "Gabriel?"

Gabriel flashes a seductive little grin. "Hiya, Sammy. Something's different. Did you shave?" He settles himself into Dean's empty chair, sitting in what can only be described as a 'have-sex-with-me' position. The fairy lights make his hair glow gold like some sort of majestic eagle or angel halo. A very... vertically challenged angel. 

Gabriel the angel. Ha.

Sam fights his blush. Damn it, it'll only encourage the little elf, but by the guy's shit-eating grin, he's already seen it. "Shut up, Gabe."

Gabriel presses a hand over his heart in mock suprise. "You wound me, my love. My glorious moose. I thought that something had happened to you. I nearly ripped off Cassie's halo for not telling me." He appraises Sam's new look with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, from the puffy sweaters and beanie to the wheelchair. "Actually, it looks like something did happen." He flops onto the table and stares up at Sam with a pout and Bambi eyes. "And you didn't call me."

"I don't have a phone, Gabriel. God, you're such a drama queen."

"I'm a size queen, Darling. There's a difference." He winks. The midget fucking winks.

"Oh my god." Sam buries his face in his hands as a feeble attempt to hide. But of course it doesn't work, because Sam would never be that lucky.

"And yet I come home for the holidays to find," Gabriel is suddenly out of his chair. He yanks Sam into a slightly agressive hug. Even sitting, the ex-hunter comes to his upper chest. When the guy presses Sam's head tightly against his breastbone, he can hear the heart inside thumping away loudly, "my beautiful moose. Healing yet wounded. Confined to this horrible chair; nearly immoblie." He pets Sam's beanie lovingly. "Trust me, my sexy sasquatch, none of those Texan barmaids I swindled during my hiatus could compare to you."

"Get off me." It's muffled by Gabriel's green t-shirt and beige bomber jacket.

"Your extensively gangly limbs. Your unfair height. Your awkward, yet attractive personality. Your-"

"What the fuck?" Gabriel releases him, stepping back to reveal Dean. He looks horrified, like he just walked in on them having kinky sex rather than flirting.

"Dean-"

"Who is this?" Gabriel asks, intrigued. He doesn't even try to hide it as he checks the older Winchester out. Then he stops and whirls on Sam with an over-the-top gasp. "Samsquatch, am I interrupting a date?"

"Gabriel-"

"Why does everyone assume we're dating?! I'm his fucking brother, man. Who the hell are you?"

Gabriel relaxes and leans back against the table. He pulls the candy cane out of Sam's hot chocolate and sticks it in his mouth. One could argue that he does it seductively with way too much tongue, but that's not helping Sam's flush at all. "Brother, huh?" He swirls the treat around in his mouth and then pulls it out with a pop. "Well this is awkward. You caught our reunion just as it was about to get steamy."

Which was the wrong thing to say. Dean's face goes from scandalized to enraged. "Are you fucking-"

"Sammy? The answer is: I would most certainly-"

"Can you two stop?" Sam interrupts. "You're making a scene. Dean, this is Gabriel. I told you about him; he's aggressively flirty and has no shame. That's just who he is. Gabe, this is my older brother, Dean. He's overly protective and a jerk."

Dean glares furiously at Gabriel for a few seconds like he wants to rip the man's heart out and eat it as dessert. Then he stalks forward and shoves the smaller man roughly aside. "Five foot distance at all times." He growls and sits heavily in his chair. He starts to eat as the midget pulls up his own seat to join them. Sam doesn't think that he's ever wanted to disappear so much in his life. There's a tense silence, like Gabriel wants to talk, but knows that Dean will shred him if he does. It results in a lot of uncomfortable shifting. The older Winchester eats his burger with aggression and seems to be mentally dismembering the short man sitting next to him.

"So," he says after the longest three minutes of Sam's life. "You work?"

Gabe brightens up a little at the invitation to talk. It's not as though he's afraid of Dean- Sam has seen the guy hold his own against gang members- but he apparently wants to impress the hunter. "Yes. Well... street work. I'm a magician. Card tricks. Slight of hand." He moves his wrist in a circle, and suddenly there's an ace of spades in his palm. "Some Tarrot cards." He uses his thumb to flip it over and it transforms into the Fool.

"So you lie professionally." Dean accuses darkly. Gabriel doesn't even flinch. 

"Yes."

There's a clatter and then the door to the shop flies open. Castiel stands there in obvious distress, looking like he pulled an all-nighter. His five o' clock shadow has evolved into a scruffy beard. Sam honestly thinks that he looks high on stimulants by the way his eyes bounce around the room like blue pin balls.

"Oh shit." Gabe mutters as Cas's muay loco attention locks down on him. The man all but stomps over to their table.

"Gabriel." It's not a growl, but it's damn near close to one.

"Cassie! Hey, I was just about to call. I see you found I wasn't hanging around your little abstinence hole anymore."

Castiel's eye twitches. "Yes." He grits out. His gaze flickers briefly to the brothers. "Hello, Dean. Sam."

"Cas," Dean greets. "You know this clown?"

Gabriel looks back and forth between the two men a few times, then wiggles his eyebrows. "So you finally unlocked your chastity belt, little brother. I told you it was worth it."

Both Castiel and Dean look like he just suggested they watch old ladies perform lap dances.

"What-"

"Little brother? This is your brother?" Sam wonders aloud. It just doesn't compute. Castiel- bless his soul- has had a stick up his ass since day one. And Gabriel... well, it could be a stick up there for all Sam knows. The guy comes across as the kinky type.

Cas's arm shoots across the table and grabs a fist full of Gabe's shirt, hauling him up so they're noses almost touch. This time, Sam is sure that Cas is blushing. Dean too for that matter, because he rubs his hands on his lap as he watches.

"Get. Back. To. The. Church." It's agression that Sam didn't think mild-mannered, damn near angelic, Castiel possessed. 

Gabe jerks away with a scowl- and not the flirty kind he usually gives Sam either. "Alright, alright. Don't get your feathers in a twist."

"I will smite you."

"Try me, fledgling. I've got a thousand years of experience on you." Then Gabriel looks down at Sam and releases a cocky grin. "Get well soon, my sexually repressed moose." He swoops in like a fucking hawk and plants a rather passionate kiss onto Sam's cheek. "We'll get freaky once you're better."

"Gabriel-"

"God! I'm going! Jeez, Cassie, you're such a prude."

Castiel glares after him as he trots out the door. Once his older brother is out of sight, his shoulders slump and he rubs a hand over his tired face. "I feel the need to apologize for his actions." He says and reaches out to smooth down Sam's beanie from where Gabriel had petted it out of place. "It appears as though you were right, Dean. Brother are 'the worst'."

Sam stifles a laugh. "I don't suppose he'll actually go to the church?"

"I will have to forcefully remove him from several promiscuous establishments before that happens."

Dean is still watching with some sort of hooded expression.

"Good luck with that, Cas."

The man nods tiredly. "Goodbye, Sam. Dean."

There's a moment of tense silence bewteen the brothers after he leaves before Dean snorts. "'Sexually repressed moose', huh?"

"Actually, I think you're more repressed for Castiel right now."

"I don't know, Sammy. You were being a blushing bride over there for Mr. Short, Blonde, and Dramatic."

"It's not nice to rub your hard-ons in public places, Dean."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby is the best. And Dean is a nosy older brother.
> 
> Oof, guys. It's a little short. Last night was kinda rough, so bear with me.
> 
> I have also heard your prayers (via comments section) about Cas and Gabe. Don't worry, their story (no idea about it yet, but it'll come to me :)) will be revealed soon. Until then... Winchester fluff and angst!!

Dean spends Christmas at the laundry mat. It might not be his best decision; spending the family-themed holiday in a cold, empty, dirty room full of washers and dryers. But someone has to do it, and the broken heater ensures that Sam wouldn't last five minutes in here. Dean was willing to wait it out until the new year to wash all of their clothes, but his kid brother dirties up five shirts at once with how many layers the guy uses, and he's been wearing the same pair of Batman underwear for three days.

Fuck society though, right? He's Dean-frigg'n-Winchester: he'll do what he wants. So if that means spending Ye Ol' Holy Night in a lonely little laundry mat, then so be it.

Maybe he'll stand around in nothing but the superhero boxers, too.

He riffles through the pockets of his jeans to make sure that he hasn't left any money in there before he tosses them into the machine and starts the cylce. Now begins the waiting game. Damn, its like a stake-out, but worse, because he's not sitting in Baby eating chips and laughing with Sam. No, he's in this fucking meat-locker of a hell hole while his little brother is probably stomping around the motel room on his still-tender feet.

At least he doesn't have to put up with druggies or soccer moms, though. It's not like anyone else is around; even the streets are empty. Everyone is at home pigging out on fresh rolls and turkey and whatever else regular people do for holidays. He hasn't seen another soul around. Aside from what looked like that handsy elf, Gabriel, being chased on foot by an enraged Cas; they were gone before he could verify the sighting though.

So he calls Bobby.

"Merry Christmas, you old dog!"

"Oh, 'Merry Christmas', he tells me. Boy, you ain't said squat in damn near a month. And then you call me with some 'Merry Christmas'. Yeah, yeah. I ain't got time for no 'Merry Christmas'."

"You and Dad in the middle of something then?"

"Yer old man has got me go'in night and day after some Wendigo up in the Dakotas." There's a rustle on the other end of the line. "What you been up to, boy?"

"You've been with Dad. You know what I'm doing, Bobby."

"I wanna hear it from you."

Dean leans back against the washer so that its a constant rumble against his back. It's like one of those vibrating mattresses, but cold and uncomfortable. "I'm on break. Visiting Sammy."

"I know that, ya idjit. I wanna know why."

"He's my brother, Bobby. Sometimes I gotta make sure he's doing alright, ya know? Getting drunk and getting laid. Living his 'normal' life."

Bobby grunts in response. "Is that so?" He sounds highly unimpressed, not that the man is ever easily wowed.

The first load of clothes that he put in all of fifty agonizingly slow minutes ago buzzes right in his ear to say it's done. Dean sighs and pulls out the wet, soggy mass to dump into a cart by the dryers. He turns to the last load of unwashed clothes. It smells like week old beer and alpha male (Dean shouldn't really joke about alphas when he knows that they're actually out there in vampire and werewolf circles, but sometimes he can't help himself). "What do you want me to say, Bobby? That I missed him? Okay, yeah. You caught me; I missed the little squirt, alright?" He pulls out an old piece of gum that has become nearly welded to the inside of Sam's pocket. There: kid can't say his brother didn't do anything for him now.

"I just wanna know why the change of heart. You ain't been hexed er noth'in, have ya? Love-potioned?"

"No, Bobby. I haven't been 'Love-Potioned' for my little brother." Dean starts up the washer and moves to the wet pile. He pulls apart the tangles of damp cloth to toss into the mega-dryer, looking like a freaking jet engine. One of the coat pockets crinkles softly. Fuck it, Sam, throw away the wrappers!

"Well excuse me, Miss Sensitive, but last time we talked about this, you's hurt'n to gank the kid someth'in bad for leav'in you and yer old man all cut an' dry like that."

"I wasn't going to gank him!" Dean pulls out three candy cane wrappers (fucking Gabriel, no doubt) before his hand slides against something wet and slick. He pulls it out.

"Not that I really blame the kid-"

"I-I gotta call you back, Bobby."

"What? Ya call me all ache'n to talk and now ya wanna-"

Dean hangs up. He'll have to apologize to Bobby later. Right now he's more interested in the suspicious, unmarked letter he's found in Sammy's coat pocket. It's floppy and wet, but still sealed, so either Sammy hasn't opened it, or hasn't had the chance to deliver. It's not like Dean wants to be highly suspicious and nosy, but in their business, it's the best of friends who become the worst enemies. And it's not like Sam's been all open and talkative about his feelings lately. Dean doesn't know what the hell happened at college, but it sure head-fucked his little brother.

So, Dean opens the letter.

Most of it's mush. Black ink has smeared around to make purplish gibberish. But, he can tell that it's addressed to Sam, and probably takes up more than half the page, even without the bleeding. There are a few that he can still read.

_Help_

_Crowley_

_Blood_

_Jackass_

_Toilet paper_ (-what even?) 

_DEMONS_


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angel back story via eavesdropping.
> 
> Thank you so much, Letbuckyeathisgoddamnplums (again) for giving me some inspiration. This fic would be a mess without you!!
> 
> Unfortunately, I won't be able to post again for 5-7 business days after this. But I promise to make it up to you when I return!

Sam wakes up with a headache. 

He doesn't remember the dream he had during the restless two hours he got, but he wakes up with a flare of pain on the back of his head and his eyes nearly swollen shut from dried tears. 

So that's what kind of day it's going to be, huh? Dammit. 

Dean left a note; said he'd finally had enough of Sam's bitching about the underwear and decided to clean it. Sam hopes that doesn't mean that he just went out to rub it in the snow. 

But now that there's no one to hold him down on the bed and threaten to handcuff him there, he gets up and wanders aimlessly around their shitty little room, cleaning up, because Dean is the worst roommate ever. He squeezes the toothpaste from the middle like a heathen. 

He finds the Shibayamalam-or whatever- honey bread Castiel left for him and scarfs it down. Even partly stale it's good. He drinks three cups of hot coffee with it to give him an extra push to the sugar rush and gets dressed in whatever clothes Dean didn't take with him to the laundry mat. 

Sam thinks that he'll walk around a bit- his feet are almost completely healed. Okay, not completely, but they're better. Slightly better. 

He takes the hotel key with him and steps out into the light snowfall. What do you know, it's a white Christmas after all. 

The outside of the motel is painted in horrible stucco; the kind that used to be white, but has yellowed over time. It's pretty damn fugly. But the main office has a droopy looking Christmas wreath sagging on the door, so he supposes it's the thought that counts. 

The next place over is a Save-a-Lot, Korean BBQ joint, bar, and tanning salon all sharing the same complex. The places are sleazy, but the women at the tanning salon always stopped to give him a few dimes. Probably because they thought he was a prostitute too ugly to get anyone. But whatever. 

The church is three blocks over, right next to an abandoned building and a bar called "Hell King". Which is a suspiciously bad spot for holy ground, but Sam guesses that Cas hadn't been able to be too picky. 

Sam stops at the mouth of his old alley. God, he had come to love this place for the amount of times it saved his ass. Lots of good garbage and tarps. There's still a faint blood stain in the concrete from where those kids beat the hell out of him, those little punks. Not that he blames them really; he could see Dean doing the same thing back when he was in high school. 

"Ow."

Sam jerks at the noise. Prays his nose doesn't start with the blood works again- it hasn't done that for a few days, but he can never be sure. 

"Castiel, get off me."

"No. Not until you've given it back."

"You chased me in a six block circle. Can we call it even?"

"No. Give me the angel blade, assbutt."

Sam doesn't think his hearing is right as he creeps forward. It can't be, because assbutt? No way in hell. 

"It's not even yours, okay? I know my blade when I see it!"

"It was entrusted to me by Uriel after you evaded his protection one too many times. Thus, it is now mine."

Suddenly, Gabriel's voice changes. He's not the flirty dwarf anymore, and Sam can't quite put his finger on what he's turned into. "Have you forgotten all that I have done for you, little one? I am your brother, how can you refuse me a weapon which could kill me?"

"You are one of many siblings, Gabriel. Be careful, for we have both seen how pride can make the mighty fall."

Sam peeks around the corner to see the back of the church. There, among the many cigarette butts and moldy cardboard boxes, are the brothers. Gabriel is towered over by Cas, trapping him against the brick wall.

"It was you who locked yourself onto my hip the moment dad graced your feathered ass into existence. My name you called to carry you through the gardens, and untangle you from thorns."

Castiel slams his brother back into the wall so that his head cracks against it. Gabe grits his teeth and glares.

"This is not about that." Cas growls. "This is about you being irresponsible. This is about you leaving a weapon in easy access because you have become soft. You have lost your rights to that blade; you lost your title the day that you ran from your family because you were too afraid to stand up to them.

Gabriel shoves his brother off of him. "Oh, like you?" He sneers.

"What I did-"

"What you did, Castiel, was have a pissing match with Rafael and then fall because you couldn't handle losing. So done that you changed species so you wouldn't have to face it."

They glare at each other, tight-lipped for several moments. "I'm keeping my blade." Gabriel hisses. "Unlike you I didn't fall." He stomps towards the bar.

"No. You just ran." Cas spits. His brother waves him off. 

Sam stands there with his head reeling until Castiel huffs and adjusts his tie to go back inside. The headache has increased tenfold. Changed species? Fell? Where the hell are they falling from?

Oh.

Fuck.

He flees the alley. It's the first time that Sam has run in weeks. His feet spark in pain with each step, but that only seems to spur him faster. Why can't anything ever be fucking simple for him? What did he do to piss of the universe- or God apparently. Because now there's that. 

His heart is banging in his ears, eyes blurring into a damn kaleidoscope, and he slams into someone. He doesn't weigh much, but he's tall and was going fast. The force of it propels them both forward onto the cement with a grunt. It makes his head smack the sidewalk hard. A few months ago, it would have just dazed him; he's been knocked around and bitch-slapped by asshole monsters since he was nine.

Now though? It knocks him out cold.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam wakes up in a shit situation and loses his favorite socks.   
> (I also know that Crowley turned out to be an okay dude, but he was pretty sketchy in the beginning, and this is Stanford Era, so..)
> 
> Heyo, I'm back! Sorry about the wait guys, I didn't have internet in my shitty hotel room, but now I'm home again, so that's good. Back to regular updates! Let me know what you guys think of this or send me ideas for this story or prompts all in the comments. Have fun reading!!

Sam's tied to a chair.

A fucking chair. He's been zip-tied and duct taped to the high heavens, and stripped down to his mickey mouse boxers. Oh, and there's a kinky-ass gag shoved between his teeth. Like he can actually move enough to draw in a deep breath. Three men play cards on top of an overturned crate a few feet away. They bet on a pile of orange pill bottles and cigarette cartons and Sam's clothes. His favorite socks, too. Damn.

So, he guesses this means it isn't Gabriel finally gving into psycho urges of bondage and bloodplay.

One of the men glances up at Sam and nudges the others. "Hey, look who's awake."

"I swear to fuck, I'm not falling for that one again so you can peek at my cards."

"Dude, I'm not shitting you guys this time."

"If String-Bean's awake, call it in."

The man frowns at the other two- Mr. Fat and Mr. Average- and pulls out his phone to dial up whoever their fucked-up boss is. "Sir, it's Raisman; in the back warehouse." There's a pause. 'Raisman's' face twists into something sour. "Goon number 47." He grits out, and his associates smother their cackles. "Yessir. He's lookin' right at me." 47 makes eye contact with Sam, who gives the best pair of puppy eyes he's got. Fat and Average finally turn to look at the ex-hunter and set down their cards. "Yessir. Will do." 47 hangs up.

"I told you guys I wasn't dicking around."

The fat one rolls his eyes and gets up. "'The Boy Who Cried Wolf', Raisman. It's a classic for a reason." He circles Sam's bound and gagged form in the chair like a chuby, bald, earth-bound vulture.

"Cut it out, Gaingsy. You're making him squirm."

Gaingsy just grins and stops right in front of Sam. "That's our job, right?" He says. Sam tries his best not to flinch, but honestly, his own brother has been making him jump accidentally for some weeks now, so if anything, it makes it worse. The ex-hunter tries to draw back as much as possible from the man, which only makes the zip-ties dig further into his thin skin. They sting when he breathes and hurt like a bitch with every shiver. Because they could have at least sprung for a space heater with whatever their henchman salary is- its fucking cold in 'the back warehouse'.

Gaingsy grabs Sam's sharp chin in a calloused grip.

"Uh. Boss said not to touch him." Raisman pipes up. He's been subtly cheating off Gaingsy's hand of cards ever since the man got out of his seat.

"I ain't gonna leave a mark." Fat-Vulture-Man assures him as he forces Sam's head to tilt around like he's inspecting a prize show dog. It's rather degrading, really. Especially as spit slips from the corner of Sam's mouth, finally overflowing, seeing as he can't exactly swallow with a dumbass gag stuffed between his jaws. But at least that drains some of the lust and want and dominace out of Gaingsy's eyes. He's apparently not into water sports.

"Don't be so frigg'n clichéd, Gaingsy. You're letting the whole 'guard-the-bean-pole' thing get to your head." The third, nameless goon demands. "Now get back over here before Boss shows up and catches you eye-raping his new find."

Apparently, they're all scared enough of the Big Man for that to be a substantial threat. Gaingsy gives Sam one last once-over before he roughly shoves away.

Sam can breathe easier when they're all three of them across the room. The ex-hunter has been in far too many situations like this one to really let it get to his nerves, but Sam's still on edge. Mostly because he's trapped in a fucking warehouse, in his underwear, operating on maybe 25% of his usual capabilities, with three creepy dudes, and waiting for their scary Boss to arrive. And it's fucking cold as balls.

But Dean should come for him, right? Sam wasn't even supposed to leave the hell-motel. Surely his brother will get back with a trunk full of clean laundry and realize "Fuck. Sam's been kidnapped" when no one's home.

The door to the warehouse opens with a horrible squeal, which just lets in another blast of arctic air to dance across Sam's exposed skin. It shuts quickly, dousing the space in thick shadows again. And since Sam's not a fucking cat, he can't see whoever the boss is. He can hear the footsteps though. Three more men by the sound of it; fancy shoes, average weight. The goons at the table stand in the presence of their employer.

By the time that the newcomers step out of the darkness, Sam's thin chest is heaving in non-consensual panic, his head is hurting like a motherfucker, and he's starting to make muffled noises behind the gag. All of which will be highly humiliating whenever Dean shows up, guns blazing.

"My, my, my." He's British. Which means it can only be- "What have we here?" 

-Fucking Crowley.

Fuck.

The bastard slowly starts to traipse toward Sam, like he has all the time in the world. "Imagine my suprise, when the very man I have been looking for for months, goes and knocks over one of my henchmen. Falling straight into my lap." He pauses and throws his head back to laugh. "It's classic, really."

Crowley takes a few more steps and stops right in front of Sam. The youngest Winchester has to look up at the rat in front of him to get any sort of eye contact. From the man's smirk, that's the only reason Sam is in a chair and not shackled to a wall or something.

"See, here's the thing, Sammy-boy." Crowley continues. It makes the ex-hunter want to throw up, because NO ONE but Dean can call him 'Sammy'.

"You are very useful to me in many ways. I mean, wow. You're just the whole package. Gossip on the angel network about your future, whispers around demon-central about your past... you've got it all."

Several things hit Sam at once; that this is about demons and hunting (because of course it is). That Crowley just confirmed it: there appear to actually be angels out there- closer and... flirtier than Sam thought, but still. That Crowley is probably an actual demon. And somehow this all ties into Sam. Who is he kidding, there's no way to a normal life for him, is there? He's probably destined from birth to be up to his eyeballs in monster shit, even after death.

"But you see," Crowley brings him back from whatever suicidal spiral his mind was about to fall into. "Before I can use you for all of that, I need information that you have."

Information? What kind of fucking information does he think Sam has?

Which is exactly what the ex-hunter tells them when Goon 47 takes the ball gag off. Crowley sighs like its oh-so-obvious.

"You see, a certain demon of mine has gone rather... rogue." So he is a demon then. Huh, Sam just thought he was a dick. "And I have reason to believe she sent you a message as to where her traitorous ass is."

Message? What- 

Well, fuck. Sam forgot about that letter. He levels the demon towering over him with a glare. "I have no idea what you're talking about." he says.

Which was the wrong thing to say.

There's a sharp jerk on Sam's scalp and his neck is suddenly exposed to the bastard, his head thrown back and held there by a sweaty hand. The demon doesn't have a knife, but runs the tip of his finger acoss the column of Sam's throat as if he's daydreaming about slitting it. It makes the ex-hunter shake even harder and swallow until his mouth is dry. Him against six guys? Six probably demons? Maybe two years ago, but no way in hell is that ending well now.

"Why are you shaking so, love? Scared?" Crowley teases in his, creepy-perv way. "Remembering the last time you ran into some of my demons?" He starts damn near caressing Sam's adam's apple with a hot and dry thumb pad. The goon with a fist full of Sam's brown locks tightens his grip so that it stings anew. "My boys didn't even know it was you. But I did. I could smell it; your blood on their baseball bats when they came in to report."

Sam screws his eyes shut tightly and grits his teeth. But Crowley doesn't stop, carying on with his British accent-laiden voice. Sam doesn't think he'll be able to watch BBC after this "Beat you black and blue. Broke your toes and your nose..." He starts to fucking stroke Sam's neck. "Made you crawl away..." He trails his thumb down to the sharp dip of the ex-hunter's collar bones and presses in hard. It stings with a dull pain and gets hard to breathe as he crushes the young man's windpipe with a single finger. Sam thrashes, but realizes that he's not going anywhere. His eyes begin to sting with bitter tears, because it's not fricking fair.

It's that thought that gets him going again, even if it's purely out of a temper-tantrum-like rage. Sam opens his eyes and forces them to look down at the demon who is outright playing with him. He draws in a pained breath. "No. I'm just cold." He growls. He's a fucking Winchester, for god's sake, and they never go down without a fight.

Crowley releases the pressure and straightens himself up. "Ah." He unleashes an evil grin. "Well, I'm sure my boys can help with that." The demon turns and begins to walk back the way he came. "You're not willing to talk right now? Fine. But you will talk eventually. Call me when you're ready." He calls.

And if Sam didn't have a bad feeling about this before, he certainly has one now. Especially as the two beefy henchmen step closer to fill in Crowley's vacancy. Brandishing very... discomforting objects.

Sam swallows. He doesn't know if it's unorthodox to pray to his older brother like Dean is a god, but he starts to anyway. And Cas and Gabriel too, because angels can hear prayers right?

But by the looks of things, Sam's going to have to do some hurting before anyone comes to the rescue.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean gets drunk off his ass and wallows in self-pity.
> 
> Me too, though.
> 
> Dean may be a little OOC here, but I always figured he might be a happy drunk, he's just really depressed right now. Poor Dean :(  
> Anyway, have fun reading!

Sam's gone. 

Just... gone. And with all of his clothes freshly washed in the trunk of Baby, it's like he was never there in the first place. No signs of a struggle. There's no extra footprints on the carpet, no scrapes in the wallpaper from desperate hands. Dean even has to assure himself for a second that he hadn't, in fact, hallucinated the whole thing. But why else would he have Mount Everest of blankets and a box overflowing with first aid shit and a nature program playing on the tv, if it wasn't Sam. His little brother had been here, and he'd been hurt. But now he's gone; left of his own free will.

And Dean has no idea what to do.

It's... it's Christmas. And ok, he gets it: Christmas means next to nothing for a Winchester- if anything, its like being bitch-slapped with everything they can't have- but still. Christmas. How. Just... how could Sammy do something like that? 

Dean doesn't even care about the letter. He doesn't care that Sam had put up a huge fight for a normal life and it turns out that he'd never even gotten out. He doesn't care that Sam lied to him about it; he'd lead his older brother to believe that the only thing there was to worry about were jackasses at thrift stores instead of demons and god knows what else. But Dean cares that he left. Not even a fucking note to say "hey big brother, I'm not dead in a ditch somewhere".

Dean loses it- as well as the deposit on this hellhole- right then and there. He scrapes everything off the desk and onto the floor in one swoop. He chucks the tv remote at the ugly wallpaper that he has hated since day fucking one. He screams and tears and rips until he's in a shuddering mess on the smelly carpet and can't motivate himself to move.

Sam lied. He fucking LIED. And its not fair, because it was supposed to be them; just them. Sam and Dean, Dean and Sam. Brothers against a whole world of shit. Even when they didn't have anyone else, they had each other. Fat lot that did for Dean though. This is the last fucking time Dean Winchester's ever gonna trust somebody.

He drives in circles for hours, throat burning like he's swallowed a hot coal as he scans the area for that emaciated body. He comes up with nothing. Not even a whisper of his baby brother.

By this time, the rage has settled into a distant heat in the pit of his stomach. He's not livid anymore, thank god. He's not going to shred Sam when he finds him now. But it leaves a bitter taste on the back of his tongue and a pounding headache and a desperate need to not be lonely. He feels like a sick cat in heat; desperate for a good fuck or a drink or anything to take the edge of failure off. Which is how he ends up with his face pressed to the bar inside a grungy joint called "Hell King". The counter is cold against Dean's flushed cheeks and those last few shots had been awful strong. He wants to cry. He wants so badly to just sob until his eyes aren't capable of cranking out tears anymore. But "dammit, Dean, Winchesters don't cry".

Fuck you John Winchester.

"Hey, buddy. You okay?" The bartender asks as he slides Dean another shot of whiskey. The hunter grunts and lifts his head to down the drink in a single gulp. It burns all the way down. No he's not okay. He'd let his baby brother slip through his fingers again. Because everyone fucking leaves Dean Winchester. Mom, Dad, Sammy... Maybe it's him. Maybe he's just so much of a fuck-up that no one can stand him.

"Well, if it ain't Dean Winchester. The Righteous Man himself."

Oh please. If there's a god in heaven, please don't let it be who Dean thinks it is. He lifts his head and squints. Nope. The universe and everything in it hate Winchesters too much, because Gabriel the arc-dickbag is leaning against the bar a few feet away.

"Huh?" Is the hunter's eloquent response. He's too hammered and depressed and possibly suicidal for this.

"Never mind. What's got you in a drunken tizzy, Mama Bear?"

"Wha' is th's? Th'rpy?"

"It can be."

"F'ck you."

"No thanks." Gabriel makes a few lewd pelvis thrusts. "I'm saving this v-card for Sammoose."

Dean groans. Gabriel is like a premature hangover. Why couldn't it have been Cas? "You're nasty. S'm pro'ly don' even like d'ck." Why is he arguing over his little brother's sexuality? Fucking alcohol, man. Besides, he'd much rather debate Sammy's dong-preferences than face the fact that he'd lost him again. How the fuck did Dean manage to lose the same guy twice? The only guy that Dean was ever trusted to watch. Fuck, he had one job, and he had to go screw it up like usual.

"Uh, yes he does. Told me himself. We used to be quite the pair, back in September or so."

"An' why's that?"

Gabe shrugs and sits in the stool right next to Dean. "Local park's pretty big. Places to hide and sleep. People are nice there so they give money to panhandlers. They want to see something, usually, so that's a good place for my tricks."

"Your LIES." Dean's pretty drunk right now. He's very drunk. The room is getting all swirly and the neon lights are making a pretty watercolor painting for his intoxicated eyes. But he's still listening as he downs another glass.

"Yeah." Gabriel laughs. "Lies. Pick-pocketing is pretty good there too." He unwraps a sucker and sticks it in his mouth. "So yeah. We used to hang around a lot."

"Ev'ryb'dy alw'ys LIES to me. Why d's ev'ryon' LIE?" Dean muses. He sways a little. Damn that is some strong drink. Or maybe he's just been sipping his grown-up juice for too long now. What time is it? He's been going steady on the bottle since at least five...

"Woah. Okay. Looks like you've had enough there, Dean-o. Why don't I take you back to your motel roo-"

"No!" Dean jerks. "Do'n wanna go b'ck." If he goes back, he'll see the empty bed. He'll see the absolute mess he made in his rage. And he won't see Sam. Dean doesn't think he can handle that right now.

"Dean," Gabriel says softly. "Did you and Sam-"

"I don' wanna talk 'bou it." Dean commands sternly as possible.

Gabe lifts his hands in surrender. "Alright. I guess I'll take you back to the church." He slips his short body beneath one of the hunter's arms and hoists him out of the stool. Suprisingly, Dean doesn't struggle. If anything, he goes limp like a dead fish as he lets the midget settle his bill.

"See Caaaass?" He whines hopefully. The room is swirly and he's tired. The older Winchester doesn't even know what's coming out of his mouth anymore.

Gabriel grunts and starts to drag him towards the back. "Yeah. You'll see Cassie. I gotta make up with him sometime, I guess."

"Tha's g'd. H's hot. N'ce ass. I m'ss S'mmy."

"You can't even see Cassie's ass. He's always covering it with that trenchcoat."

"Liar. St'y 'way fr'm S'mmy."

"Okay, bucko. Anything you want."

"G'd. 'M sleep'in w'th Cas, right? He n'ds m're sleep."

Dean passes out before they can make it all the way out of the bar.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sammy gets whumped. I'm not sorry for anything. 
> 
> Yo, just to let you guys know, this chapter has some torture. Nothing that'll probably make you really uncomfortable, but still. Sadism isn't for everyone; no shame in that.  
> Nothing is actually crucial to the storyline (except you find out who sent the letter. I'll put that in a note at the end), so you can always just skip.

Fighting back to consciousness after being beaten senseless with some dickbag's belt is like trying to swim through molasses. It's thick and heavy and so damn hard. 

Probably because there's so much pain. 

All that Sam is sure of right now is that this henchman is not a dentist. He didn't go through the training and college and whatever the hell else you have to do to get that D.D.S. tacked onto the end of your name. And yet, the man has been shoving some sort of second hand dentistry equipment under Sam's fingernails and wiggling it around for what feels like hours. 

"Agghk!" He bites down on the scream. "Fuck, those tools are for my mouth, you dumbass!" The hooked spike digs at Sam's nail bed and blood drips onto the concrete. He's already surrounded in a pool of it. 

"We're supposed to leave you able to talk." The possessed thug informs him. "Ready?"

Sam thrashes. The zip ties have long since dug through his skin and embedded themselves into his thin layer of muscle, cozying right up onto his bones. "Bite. Me." He snarls through his bashed teeth. 

The swelling and bruises garble the words. Sam's pretty sure his face isn't going to make it through this; several angry beatings with the infamous baseball bat and a belt and a few other things have left his eye swelled, his mouth bloody, and his cheeks mottled with purple bruises. 

Come fucking on, Dean. It can't possibly take this long to wash some damn clothes and realize Sam's not squatting in Roach-Central anymore. 

The man sighs and shakes his head before ripping the tool out and throwing it onto the bloody tray beside him. He trades it in for a plain old knife. "You know it doesn't have to be this hard. Crowley just wants to know where Ruby is."

"For the last time, I didn't fucking read the letter, okay? I don't know where that bitch is-aarrraaggh!"

The knife is a little dull. It slides carefully over the skin on the ex-hunter's chest, riding over the sharp knobs of his ribs like waves. Blood wells up in its wake. Pain centers there, like a million wasps stinging his nervous system. 

"Tell. Me."

"I. Don't. Know." Sam grits his teeth until they bleed in their sockets. 

Deandeandeandeandeandean.…

"I don't know, I don't know, idontknow, idontknowidontknow-" He cuts off when a swift and blunt kick is delivered to his shin. The man doesn't even really give him appropriate time to scream before he's digging his bloody hand into Sam's shaggy hair and forcing his head up. 

"I don't care. You received a letter from that traitorous hag," he drops the knife and kicks Sam's other shin, winding his foot all the way up before crashing the steel toe into bone "and that means you must know something."

Helpmehelpmehelpmehelpme…

"I don't know anything!"

The goon makes a sour face. "So you keep saying." He grits out. His blood-slicked hand circles Sam's throat easily and begins to squeeze. Heat rushes to the ex-hunter's face as he gasps raggedly for air. Cartilage and muscles pop deep inside his throat as the man crushes his trachea. The goon's eyes flicker black with the demon rolling around in there. "I don't believe you. Tell me what you know."

Sam can't exactly respond until the guy releases his windpipe. He gasps shakily for air and coughs roughly. Each spasm of his throat feels like it's tearing. 

"I don't- I don't know anything. I swear." The possessed man runs a hand over his face. It only serves to smear Sam's blood across his features. "Fine." He grits out eventually. 

Somehow, Sam doesn't think that's fine at all. 

He thrashes when the man begins to apply little sticky patches to Sam's temples and chest. "What are you doing?"

The guy fastens alligator clips to metal knobs on the tops of the stickers. "We're going to play electric chair until you decide that your life is more important than some ho you hung out with for a few months."

Shit. 

"No! No, I told you I don't- nnnnggh!" White hot electric currents flare through Sam's body. His muscles tense and dig his restraints further into his skin. 

"Where is Ruby?"

"Go fu-naaaghk!"

"What did the letter say?"

"Hell if I know, I didn't even-hnnng!"

"Who gave you the letter?"

"I don't know, okay? I don't-arrgh!"

The pulses continue. Sharp bursts of pain that make him see sparks and his nose gush with blood. They hurt; so much more than the knives or the rusty dentist tools. They aren't just on his skin, they're everywhere, pain coursing inside of him, all the way down to his bones. Eventually, his answers stop being witty retorts and just:

"Dean. Dean. Deandeandeandean-"

Sam's eyes are streaming tears like Niagara Falls and everything aches and burns, even once the pulses have been shut off. 

"Is that an answer? Dean?"

"He's…h-he's gonna fucking k-k-kill you."

The demon laughs. He fucking laughs. "Yeah. We'll see about that."

Sam's head lolls down. He doesn't have the energy to lift it much. "Dean. D-Dean. M-My brother's gonna k-kill you for this."

Another spurt of electricity has a full on scream finally ripping its way out of his lungs. He can smell the burning flesh hidden beneath the scent of blood clogging his nose. 

"Where is Ruby?"

"Dunn… dunno."

Deandeandeandeandeandeandean-

"ARRRAAGGHH!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drumroll please…
> 
> Bam.   
> It's Ruby. 
> 
> And it's really brief, but they don't know Kevin gave Sam the letter either.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean learns the truth. Sam's prayers are about to be answered!
> 
> Oof. Enjoy this longer chapter because it took a while. Happy 4th of July if you're in America, and Happy Wednesday to everyone else!

Of all the places Dean has woken up after a night on a bender, a church has never been one of them. And for one blissful moment, he wonders if he'd actually been lucky enough for the local preacher to be secretly gay and to have landed the guy. And then he realizes that he's not only in a church, he's in the baptismal pool. Which is a gloried bathtub. 

"Of all of the places you could have stashed him, Gabriel."

Cas. In the distance somewhere. Dean can just barely hear him over the incessant ringing in his ears. 

"Hey. He sure as hell wasn't going in my bed. Those are Egyptian cotton sheets. A gift from Ra himself. The only mortal who's gonna be touching those is-"

"Don't, Gab-"

"-Samsquasch."

Dean sits up and is immediately slammed with the semi truck that is a hangover. His head throbs and his throat burns and he's just overall miserable. "Ooh god. My fuck'n head.…"

Castiel appears almost out of nowhere beside him, brandishing a bottle of water and Tylenol. "Hello, Dean."

Dean grunts and rubs at his gritty eyes. "Cas." He manages after several gulps of cold water. He blinks hard, trying to get everything into focus. 

"It's nine thirty in the morning, Christmas Day."

Gabriel is there too. Just fucking… poof. He's leaning over the rim of the Holy Tub and practically molesting a sucker with his tongue. "You're lucky we don't do that special 'Christmas Service' crap cuz, Dean-o, you were pretty damn wasted last night. Also, I'm not sure if that's booze or piss all over your pants. You might want to check that out."

Dean glances down. Just fucking great. "So… what happened?" He actually doesn't want to know the answer that bad. He'd rather just live in blissful ignorance with Sammy in a shit motel for the rest of his life. 

Gabriel and Cas share a quick glance. "Hell if we know." Gabe shrugs. "You were balls deep in a bottle of whiskey when I went up to close my tab."

Dean groans and shifts to stand. Every muscle feels like it's been removed from his body and ruthlessly beaten with a rolling pin. He shakes a little when he stands, holding onto the edge of a godly bathtub for his life until he gets his feet under him. 

"We tried to call Sam." Cas says in his gravelly voice, watching Dean struggle with wide blue eyes. "There was no answer." 

Dean falls back onto his tailbone with a thump. That's right, isn't it? They wouldn't have gotten Sam. Because Sam lied and left and would rather squat on a cold street corner at the mercy of demons than be with Dean. That alone feels like someone has clawed him in the solar plexus with nine inch nails. 

Fuck. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry….

"Y-yeah." Dean says. And fuck it because his voice breaks half way through. "Sam… Sam left." He squeezes his eyes shut against the morning sun and the oncoming tears. He always gets emotional during hangovers. 

"What do you mean, left?" Gabriel has lost all of his playfulness in less than two seconds. 

"I mean he was just… gone! No note. No nothing. I went to do laundry and I came back and poof! No sign of a struggle. Took my shoes and left." Dean sniffs and rubs angrily at his face. "An'… an' I found a note. In his pocket. When I was washing his clothes. We were… we were messed up in some stuff as kids and he'd wanted out. That's why he left in the first place. Turns out… he never really made it."

When he looks up, the two brothers are staring at him with horrified expressions. "So… he just left?" Gabriel's voice pitches high. "I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound like Sam."

And boy was that the wrong thing to say. Dean usually takes these things in stride, but he's hungover and depressed right now. He doesn't have the emotional capacity to deal with shit. 

"It doesn't 'sound like Sam'? Sorry, I think I know my own damn brother better than you assholes do!"

"Oh yeah? And where were you when he was begging pretentious cocks for money?"

Dean goes cold. How fucking dare he?! Who does this prick think he is?! He glares at the dwarf with enough rage to incinerate the sun. "Say. That. Again. And I swear, I'll run you through."

"You heard me." The guy actually juts out his chin in revolt, crossing his stubby little arms over an Aerosmith band shirt and glowering right back. "Where. Were. You."

Dean strikes like a coiled cobra. He lunges over the side of the tub at Gabriel, slinging his silver knife out to slash the guy right back into his place. Even though Gabe flinches away, it still manages to get him pretty good from his jaw to his eye socket. The short little thorn in Dean's side doubles over, pressing his hand to his face with a grunt. 

"Dean!" Cas barks and throws himself over his brother before the enraged hunter can make another move. "Stop. I know that you are angry and hurt, but believe me, this is not the way to do things."

Dean doesn't fucking care. He doesn't care about a lot of things now that Sam won't be hurt by his actions. He charges against Castiel. "Get outta the way Cas! That bastard is gonna-"

What the ever loving fuck. 

Dean knows he slashed the guy. He's hungover, sure. But not that hungover. He had felt his blade catch on the other man's skin. He'd seen the blood begin to well up. 

And now he's not fucking bleeding. 

Dean looks at his blade. It's sticky and red. He looks back up at Gabriel and Castiel. "What the fuck."

"Dean. Please sit down." Cas insists softly, wrapping his warm, dry hand over Dean's wrist and guiding him out of a murderous stance. The hunter lets him, falling limply against the side of the altar, his knees locking to barely keep him upright. 

His mouth wants to form the words of "how" and "what the hell" but Dean's been doing this for far too long. "What are you?" He asks. Because they aren't showing signs of being werewolves or vampires or ghosts or demons. And there's a whole list of nearly everything that would die upon contact with silver and all that Gabriel did was heal himself right up. 

"Um." The guy rubs the back of his neck, suddenly looking embarrassed. He chances a look at his brother, who is pissed to say the least. "What? It was instinctual!" He defends. 

Cas makes a low growl. "Dean. Please sit down." He finally decides on insisting again. 

Dean snaps. He's not a fucking civilian. He's probably been in this business longer than Cas has been alive. "No. You tell me right now, what the hell are you?"

"I am human."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am. Gabriel is not."

It takes Dean a minute to realize that something not human has been hitting on his baby brother for probably a few months now. Gabriel, for his part, sets his hands on his hips petulantly. 

"Now hold on." He says. "Don't put this all on your big brother, Chickadee. You weren't always a monkey's cousin either."

"Don't change the subject." Cas snaps. 

"I'm not changing the subject. I just think that you should be the one to-"

Dean can't take it. He flies forwards and grabs a fist of Castiel's trench coat, holding the knife to the guy's neck. "You're human, huh? Then you'll bleed out if I slit your throat. Now quit dicking around and someone explain this to me." He doesn't want to slit Cas's throat. But no, he has to remind himself that this isn't Cas. He doesn't know what the hell it is, but by the way Gabriel is talking, neither one of them started out homosapiens. 

He can feel It's Adam's apple bob against the blade when It swallows. "My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the lord."

There is a tense silence. "Like an… angel angel? With wings and halos?" There's a tentative nod against the knife. "…You do know I wasn't fucking born yesterday, right?" Dean yells. 'Angel of the Lord' what kind of a dick answer is that? "You actually expect me to believe that?!" Witches. They have to be witches. 

Gabriel sighs impatiently and waves his hand. The blade is ripped out of Dean's grasp and thrown across the room. "No we don't expect you to believe it, Numb-Nuts, but it's the truth."

Dean is vaguely surprised that Cas doesn't elbow him in the soft spot, he simply slides out of the hunter's grasp. "Whether you believe it or not is unimportant. What's important is that we find your brother."

"You two stay the hell away from Sammy."

"Dean, please be reasonable. How likely is it that Sam just up and left?"

"But I found a note-"

"Dean."

"No! I don't know what the hell you two are, but you stay the fuck away from me and my brother, do you hear me?" He starts to stumble across the room towards the door. 

Cas watches Dean retreat with his fucking blue ass puppy eyes and a concerned crease in the middle of his forehead. Damn those eyes!

"Dean, please-"

Gabriel jerks suddenly like he's been slapped. His fingers fly to touch his temple gently. "Wait…." He mutters. It's possibly the most serious expression that the hunter has ever seen on his face. 

Dean takes it as a distraction to get the hell out of dodge and the moment Castiel turns to look at his brother, he makes a break for the doors. They don't move when he pulls on them. "You fuckers! This is illegal. Unlock the frigg'n door!" He yanks desperately on the handle. 

"Dean, stop!" Cas demands. He's fluttering anxiously around Gabriel. 

"Sam." Gabe says suddenly. "It's Sam…"

"Fucking stay away from my-" Dean has one foot propped up against the door as leverage to try and pry it open. With a wave of the smaller brother's hand, he's flying across the room and colliding into a church pew. 

"Dean-o, shut the hell up for two seconds. Your brother is praying." Gabriel snaps before his eyes suddenly fly open in shock and he grunts. 

"What is it? What's he saying?" Cas asks. 

"He's… begging." Dean freezes at the words. The midget locks his golden-eyed gaze onto the hunter, any trace of humor gone. "Help. He needs help."


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's prayer. 
> 
> No actual torture this time around kiddos. 
> 
> Whoop! Two chapters in one day! Aren't you all just the luckiest (nope. I'm actually just feeling really lazy and would rather do this than get out of bed).

"Still not feeling talkative?"

Sam can't look up. He would love to, sure. He would really like to raise his head and spit right on that fucking stupid face and dumbass accent. 

If he could actually work up a good spit right now. Or lift his chin off of his chest. Waterboarding tends to do that to you though. 

But no matter, because Crowley- being the dick he is- reaches down and lifts Sam's chin for him. "G-go… go to hell." The ex-hunter manages to whisper. 

Oh, god. Please Dean. Deandeandeandeandeandeandean…

Crowley drops the chin support. "Well I am the king there. But as much as I'd fancy myself a dip in the river Styx, I would much rather be up here-" he presses a finger into one of the open cuts "-bringing the hell to you."

Dude must have sweaty ass hands because he makes the gash sting like a bitch. 

"You should consider yourself lucky, it's not every day that I make house calls." He continues. 

"I don't… l-let me go."

"Why? Because you told my demons a faceless man gave you a letter that said Ruby is laying low in Illinois? Sorry, I happen to be the king of lies; I know one when I hear it."

"T-t-then how 'bout this one: I don't know anything."

Crowley hums in mock thoughtfulness. "No. You know something. Where is she?"

"I d-don't fuck'n know."

"Who gave you the letter?"

"I-I don't know. I n-never saw 'is face."

Crowley sighs. "You know you can't win at this. You'll tell us eventually. Demons don't need to sleep. We can torture you and torture you and never need a break."

Sam doesn't have the energy to respond. He barely has enough in the tank to keep breathing. But Dean will come. He knows this. Dean has to come for him. 

"C-c…" 

Crowley leans closer. "What was that?"

"Castiel. Gabriel. Angels, h-hear my p-p-prayer-"

Crowley flinches and turns to his goons. "Someone shut him up!" He commands. 

And that? Boy, that pisses Sam off. Enough to get his fire going, even if just for a few seconds.

Sam throws his head back. It hurts to draw in such a deep breath. "Gabriel! Please! It's Sam! Help me, help me, angel of God. Messenger of the lord, you cocky dickbag with wings! You haven't left me two seconds to myself since we met you fucker!" 

Goons approach him with that god awful ball gag. Someone grabs his chin to force it in. Sam thrashes and snaps his teeth. 

"Your goddam 'Moose' needs you, assbutt! I always thought angels were fucking naked babies with wings, and you proved it right! You hear me, short-stack?!"

The demons struggle to keep him still, more joining in to help grab at his bruised and battered face and hold his jaw still. "Candy-sucking bastard! Turn up your hearing aids and get your feathered ass over here! Messenger of the Lord, my ass! You're so fucking short you prob-mmf! Mmmpf!"

He bites his own tongue three times during the process of possessed body builders cramming a used ball gag into his mouth. It's unpleasant to say the least. When they're done, all that Sam can do is glare daggers at them, trying to suck air in through his mostly blocked and broken nose. 

Crowley stares back. He looks slightly disgusted, but Sam is out of energy now completely and can't spare any towards caring. 

"Give him a few lashes and see if he wants to talk about the letter then."

Fuck. Dean, hurry.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel has a migraine. Dean can't deal with this shit. Also a little bit of backstory on exactly how Gabriel's angel mojo works. 
> 
> Oof, guys. This fic is getting really long. And has like 2,000 hits. So, wow. Just… wow. Thanks for all of the ideas and comments and kudos. I honestly almost dropped it around like chapter seven because I have the attention span of a five year old. So thanks for not letting me do that :)

"I don't know why I'm fucking doing this with you shits."

"Because your brother is relentless in prayer and he needs our help."

"Oh yeah, because apparently god now exists as well as angels and whatever else you have hidden up your ass."

"Hey don't-"

Cas climbs into the passenger seat of Dean's beloved Baby. Dean hates to say it, but he looks a little refreshed from just a few minutes away from his brother. "Anna has not heard of anything." He announces. 

Dean rolls his eyes and puts his car in gear. "Can't fucking believe that you guys got the hot doctor too."

"Well I almost had your hot brother but I guess we don't always get what we want." Gabriel pipes up from the backseat like the little shit he is. 

"Okay, can you stop with the flirting for two seconds? Sam isn't even here." Dean pulls onto the main road. "Which, funny enough, is the only reason that I'm still with you guys. Now we find Sam and then we all go our separate ways, alright? You help me find my brother, and I don't kill you because you're monsters; that's the deal."

Cas is looking at him again with those wide eyes. "Actually, Dean, there is no escape from Gabriel for me. Seeing as I now have no means to run him off and he refuses to leave."

"Aww. That's 'cause you're my favorite younger brother, Cassie!"

"Focus! I thought you two were going to help me. I thought you guys actually cared about Sam."

That gets Gabriel's attention, making him shoot straight up from where he was leaning lazily against the door. "Hey, I lighten the mood with humor. Maybe you should try it sometime."

"I don't need you fucking-"

"Turn here." Gabriel suddenly flies greedily against the window, his breath fogging it up. "He's this way, I can feel him!"

Dean turns a sharp right, tires squealing on the road and cutting someone off in the process. They're heading towards the long strip of old warehouses and abandoned factories. It's prime squatting territory, and Dean just hopes no one gets the bright idea to try and hot-wire Baby or there will be hell to pay. 

They drive in silence, Cas's gaze never straying from dead center ahead, and Gabriel carefully scanning the buildings outside his window. Dean grips the trigger of his pistol, ready to unload a few rounds into the both of them when this charade finally comes to a head, and one or both of the pair tries to eat him. 

But they might have Sammy. And so the hunter is willing to go along like a good little lamb for now, if it means that these two lead him to his brother. Or maybe they won't and Dean will just have the satisfaction of knowing that he blasted the balls off another two witches (or whatever they are) singlehandedly. 

"Turn." And Dean does, weaving through some empty barrels. 

"We must be getting close." Castiel mutters, leaning forward to scan the top of the nearest factory. 

"You can't rush these things, Karen!" Gabriel growls, massaging his temples and closing his eyes like it hurts. 

"Karen? My name is Cas-"

"Don't. I'll explain it later." The shortest of the trio switches to grinding his palms into his eyes. "Sam's praying is kinda… thready." For a moment, he looks as though he might cry before he beats his fist into the back of his brother's seat. "Dammit! I don't have enough grace for this!"

"Woah, hey! Don't take it out on my car or you'll be walking, alright? Just focus on Sam." Dean barks and guns the Impala a little. 

"Easy for you to say." Gabe mumbles. Honestly, the guy looks miserable. Dean sends a questioning glance to Cas. 

"Angels operate on what is called Grace, Dean. It's what gives us our powers; usually teleportation, smiting, general invincibility, healing, the hearing of prayers, access to heaven, telepathy with other angels, telekinesis-"

"I get it. You guys got all the fun stuff."

Castiel looks a little irritated. "The point is, Gabriel has been on earth so long, and purposefully drained some of his grace to avoid capture that his abilities are depleted."

"Avoiding who's capture?"

Gabriel lets out a high laugh. "You have no idea how many dicks want to get their hands on an archangel."

"There are only seven, after all. And they are the most powerful type of angel." Cas supplies helpfully. 

Dean taps his fingers on Baby's leather steering wheel. "So you're telling me that I'm supposedly going after my brother with a now-human ex-angel, and a short-changed archangel? Fan-fucking-tastic."

Gabriel opens his mouth to retort, but then slams his jaws closed on his own tongue. "Here. Up here. It's stronger dead ahead." 

"You mean the old soap factory?" Castiel asks, peering at the old thing like it's a gateway to hell. He wrinkles his nose in distaste. 

"No. No, dumbass. The warehouse behind it." The archangel snaps. "Dad in heaven, I'm not built for this kind of concentration on a specific prayer. Hurts like a mother-"

"Alright, well quit your bellyaching! Let's find Sam and go. Can you tell if there are demons around?" Dean demands. He's just about had enough of the irritating little midget, angel or not. Maybe he'll shoot the guy, dump him in the warehouse, and hope he won't heal. Cas too, except that's harder because the guy turns his big eyes onto Dean and dials the innocence factor up to eleven. 

"Hey! The only mortal equivalent to this would be if you turned your phone brightness up to one hundred and read point seven font legal documents on it for sixteen hours straight. Why don't you do that, and then we'll talk."

Dean snorts. "You say 'mortal' like it's a disease, but last time I checked, you're the one with the cosmic headache."

"Focus, Gabriel. Not much longer." Cas growls. 

"I am focusing! Agh, okay. There are some demons. Two… four. Maybe four really close. More inside to old factory."

Dean pulls his Baby into an area secluded by several old dumpsters and shuts off the engine. "Demons, huh? We get any closer and they'll see us." He tells the brothers and cocks his gun. "You're sure Sam's in there?" To be honest, Dean doesn't believe either of them. It could be one hell of a trap. It probably is. But for Sam? He'd risk anything. 

"I'm positive." Suddenly, there's a long, silver blade in short-stack's hands. 

"What the fuck?" Dean double takes because he's pretty damn sure he doesn't have any weapons like that stored in his car. Did Gabriel just fucking summon it? He looks to the passenger seat, and Castiel is sitting there calmly with his own matching blade, if a little shorter. 

"It's an angel blade, Dean. Kills demons."

The hunter nods like a bobble head. "Okay. Okay, we ready?"

Gabriel smirks, swiping his thumb across his forehead in a last effort to relieve some of the pressure he's mounted with concentrating. He opens his door and hops out. "Yeah. Just follow my lead, Dean-o."


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Operation Rescue Sam Vol. 1: Sam is kinda depressed and the demons are sassy. Cliffhanger ending I couldn't resist :)
> 
> There's a small amount of torture in this one, but nothing like a few chapters ago. It's pretty vanilla, just Sam feeling like a martyr.

He deserves this. This must be his penance for getting Jess killed. Sam was stupid and selfish and now this is what he deserves. 

His back burns like he's been rolling around on a fire-ant hill for a few hours, his face throbs in time to his heartbeat- skin taut with swollen tissue- and every other second it's like the room temperature changes from sweltering to freezing. 

Sam doesn't even think that he's recognizable anymore; just a mass of blood and bruises, trembling in pain and fear. Mostly pain though, since they haven't cracked out the clown costumes yet. 

Well, he's certainly been whammied by the Universe's "fuck you" this time. He knew something was going to happen. He knew that his luck couldn't be that good because oh no, he's Sam Winchester, and Sam Winchester just doesn't get breaks. Every time something looks up for him, the world beats him back into place. 

And now, whenever he turns his head, he thinks he sees Jess out of the corner of his eye. Watching his pain and suffering and not doing a damn thing about it. Kinda like god and Gabriel and Castiel and everyone else who can probably hear his hysterical praying but stays the hell away. 

"You ready to talk, yet?"

Sam has stopped giving answers. 

"Guess not." The demon presses the salt-water soaked rag into Sam's left shoulder. The cat o' nine tails that they had used on his back had reached across the whole breadth of his shoulders, leaving raw lash marks and torn skin. He hisses and kicks limply when the salt soaks into the open wound. 

"Where is Ruby?" 

Sam grits his teeth behind the gag when they shift the blood and sweat stained rag to the gashes in his cheek. It stings like he's been walloped with a frying pan fresh off the burner. He practically vibrates in place with a sudden cold flash. 

"Demon Blood, I got all the time in the world to do this." They've taken to calling him 'Demon Blood' and 'Boy King' like he's Jesus or something. Fuck'n great. "Why don't you just tell us, huh? What's Ruby ever done for you?" 

Ruby hasn't done shit for Sam. Except turn out to be a demon and make his life shit again. He would so rat her out if he knew a damn thing as to where she is. God, what if they got Dean too? Maybe that's why he hasn't shown up yet. Maybe they'll bring his brother out and start to torture him too until Sam is rolling in a puddle of his own fluids and begging them to stop. 

Fuck Sam's imagination. It's starting to run wild into places that he doesn't want to go. He needs to get the hell out of here. 

The salt-and-blood crusted cloth jerks away. It leaves a reminiscent sting behind as the demon is dragged away by his coworker to the far corner. Sam takes the break to let his eyes flutter closed to breathe. 

"-Boss says-"

"I don't care. Drake isn't answering his phone. I'm going to go out to check."

"That's so dumb, you know that right? Boy King's older brother is probably here with the god squad, ready to smite your ass to kingdom come the second you walk out that door!"

"I know that, but it's either wait for them to come and rip us apart, or take the fight to them. Either way, we're probably angel-fried bacon by the end of it."

"Not if we leave now and beat it back to hell!"

"And face Lucifer? I don't think so."

Sam is slumped over, pulling his restraints taut against his skin, but he stiffens a little at their words. Dean? Is Dean finally here? Goddam, did he stop to help an old lady change a tire on the way?

One of the demons huffs and starts towards the door. When he opens it, the ex-hunter has to shy away from the light that assaults his eyes. Damn, the sun hates him too. 

The last remaining demon is hesitant to get back to work, shifting around like he's got to piss and listening carefully for any sounds outside. 

Sam can't hear much of anything beyond the ringing in his ears, but apparently the demon does, because he goes pale and fixes Sam with a mildly nauseous look. He then opens his mouth and with a roar, the demon leaves his vessel in a spiral of black smoke and putrid smell of sulfur and tires. 

The body slumps to the ground just as the door bursts open again with so much force, it crashes into the wall. Three figures stumble inside, their features obscured by the glaring pale light behind them. 

"Sam?"


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Operation Rescue Sam Vol. 2: The Feels. The comfort you were promised has been delivered :D
> 
> Also, I was reading some fanfics last night, gearing up to drop some awesome comments, and then I realized "oh shit, everyone else responds to comments and I've only done that like twice. I'm a shitty person, my poor readers!" So yeah I'll try and do that more often now (because I read and appreciate your comments)!

"Sam? Sammy? Sam!"

He can't keep his head upright. Why can't he keep his head up? That's like the first thing a newborn learns how to do! But his skull is suddenly too heavy and full of pain and worry and it just hangs there, resting against his brittle chest. 

Dean. Dean's here. He's here with the tree-toppers and all three of them look pissed to the high heavens as they rampage across the warehouse. 

Dean gets to his brother first, dropping down onto his knees like he's sliding into home plate and getting handsy all over Sam's fresh wounds. "Sammy! C'mon, man…" He rakes his fingers through the long locks, matted with blood and grime. 

On Sam's other side, Gabriel elbows in and starts to unclasp the gag. "Kinky fuckers. I guess BDSM is off the table after this." He mutters, nimble fingers twisting at the strap until it comes off. 

As soon as the ball is out of his mouth, Sam is spitting gobs of red- thick from dehydration- and trying to stifle his coughs. Dean wastes no time lifting his younger brother's face by the sharp edges of his jaw and brushing his bangs back. 

"Oh my god…." He looks angry. He looks madder than pit bull; ready rip some throats out. But his eyes are red rimmed and watery and he won't stop touching Sam like he needs to assure himself that he's safe now. "Sammy. Sammy, can you hear me? C'mon, man, look at me!"

Sam thought he was, but apparently he's just been staring at the collar of Dean's shirt with a glazed over look in his eyes. It's fuck'n hard to make his eyes move; feels like they're magnetized to the same damn spot. But he manages. 

"There we go." Dean blows out a puff of air. "Good, Sammy."

"M-m… 'm n…not a d-og." His gums hurt and his teeth ache. 

Dean and Gabriel exchange a look that Sam can't decipher currently. "Yeah. A dog would talk less, right? Let's get you outta here." The older Winchester says. 

Gabriel runs the tip of his blade against the duct tape, splitting it open easily as Dean continues to try and catalogue all of the injuries, as much good that does, seeing as Sam has far too many for that shit. 

As soon as he can pull free, the youngest Winchester is slumping forward against his brother with as much liveliness as a corpse in a body-bag. Dean is quick to catch him, holding Sam close. 

Sam can't help it really, his arms come out to wrap around Dean's robust rib cage and his hands make claws which procure their own handles out of the leather jacket. Let Dean drag him across the world like this; he's not letting go, even if it kills him. 

There's Gabriel's gray hoodie, soft from wear, suddenly over his shaking body. He's probably getting blood all over it. An extra hand finds its way to Sam's forehead before Dean jerks him away. "Don't touch him!" He growls. 

"Hey, angels can heal, remember? Maybe I can help."

"Like hell!"

Gabriel sighs, irritated, before he stands and brushes off his knees. He grimaces at the blood stains from where he was kneeling in a puddle of it. "Well, if I remember right, you were too smashed to think that he'd actually been taken. So you're welcome for realizing he was missing and finding him and everything."

Dean's grip tightens as he no doubt sends a murderous glare to the short angel. Sam whimpers at the added pressure on his beaten form. That's all it takes for Dean to go full on mother-bear, instantly softening and damn near petting his brother like he's a beaten animal. 

Sam doesn't care. He cares that he's warm and safe and Dean is here. It's over and Dean is going to keep him safe. Even though the nasty voice in the back of his head whispers that both of them had been helpless against Crowley's goons the first time around. But if anything, Dean Winchester learns from his mistakes. 

Castiel's gravelly voice cuts into the fray. "Crowley's gone. Any demons he left are dead. We need to move." 

Sam can feel his brother tense and nod. He rubs Sam's shoulders in what's supposed to be a comforting motion before shifting. The youngest Winchester is seized and violently shaken by overwhelming panic. 

Dean's pulling away. No, god no. Please- no. He hasn't cried yet throughout the whole ordeal, and he'll be damned before he cries over Dean trying to adjust his grip. Fuck he feels like a hormonal teenage girl. 

"Hey, breathe. Come on, Sammy. You've made it this far, don't panic and suffocate now." The hunter gets his arms beneath his brother's and hoists him up. Sam still doesn't release the jacket, even though he feels stupid for it. Like a damn starved kitten, making aborted, mewling noises that even he can hear over the sound of his own hysteria. 

Dean shushes him as he stands, holding his brother in bridal style. Sam buries his face into Dean's neck, flesh hot against his cold nose. The skin there is scratchy with a budding five 'o clock shadow. 

He realizes dimly, that they never hug. Sam can't remember the last time it happened, actually. And not that cradling, skin-to-skin, bro-body-smash that Dean does after a nightmare. All that is, is a 'yo, I know your life sucks right now. I promise it'll get better'. They should actually hug more often. He likes it. It's nice. And not in a weird way; he has his personal sex-angel for that, apparently. 

"Yo Sammy, you still with me? You're starting to drift here, buddy."

"Hmm… we s-sh'uld hug m-more."

"Don't get all sappy on me, Sam."

Dean opens the back door of the Impala and bends to gently lay his brother inside on the leather seats. "Uh… you're gonna have to let me go. I gotta drive, little brother."

Sam is not physically capable of releasing Dean within probably the next few days. Not even if he wanted to- and he really doesn't. He starts to take quick breaths. 

"Woah. Hey. Okay, okay. Cas can drive." Dean scoots his brother over and climbs in, rubbing an unbruised spot on Sam's lower back until his breathing evens out. 

"Dean, I should inform you that I have no idea how to appropriately operate a motorized vehicle-"

"Well I'm sure as hell not letting Sam's cheerleader drive my Baby! You'd better learn fast, Cupid!"

"Cupids are an entirely different-"

Gabriel climbs into the passenger seat. "Don't worry, Brother Bear, I'll talk him though it."

"Oh god."

Sam's drifting in and out of it as Gabriel begins to direct his brother. It's like he's stuck on a raft, caught in the current. Floating in and out. His hands keep slipping, smeared with his own blood. It's the sudden shock every time the material shifts in his hands that startled him back to semi-consciousness. 

"Just rest, Sammy. I'm not going anywhere." Dean murmurs into his brother's ear. Sam makes an embarrassingly strangled noise and nods stiffly. 

"D-don't let… l-let go.…" his voice is hoarse and dry. 

Dean holds him tighter, even though it stings. "I won't."


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Anna has a plan. 
> 
> Yo guys I am so sorry this chapter is first draft shit and I know it. I'll fix it tomorrow I promise, but I wanted to post anyway.  
> A surrogate mom of mine died yesterday and I'm a mess. Sorry!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEW NOTE: As of 7-9-2018, the chapter is no longer first draft shit. So if you read it the day I originally posted (7-8-2018), you should read it again now because it's better. If you're just rolling on through, after this date, then you're good!

Dean remembers every one of Sam's "Firsts" like the damn parent that he is. 

He remembers holding his little brother's chubby hands as he took his first drunken steps ("Dad! Daddy, look! Sammy's walking!").

He remembers the first babbling word ("Dee… Deeee… De… De. De... n. Dee'n. Dee'n!").

He remembers the first black eye ("C'mom, Sammy. Hold the ice there and it'll help."), and the first day of school ("You gotta let go of my hand, Samwise-the-Brave. I promise, I'm right down the hall.")

First kiss, first loose tooth, first fight, first heartbreak, first beer, first ghost. 

He supposes it's only appropriate that he be there for the first torture-recovery as well. So he lets his brother cling to him like a baby sloth. An overly large, awkward, and gangly sloth who thinks the floor is lava and will thus die should he touch it. But at least he's asleep now. 

"I'm here!" Dr. Anna Milton stumbles through the front door of Cas's little apartment above the main church. She looks distressed, her wild red hair flying in all directions and the collar of her white lab coat flipped up. 

"Hey, Doctor Angel." Dean sneers from a blue La-Z-Boy chair in the corner of the room. His brother is nestled securely in his arms, long legs dangling over the arm. 

She ignores Dean in favor of her patient; eyes zeroing in like crosshairs on the youngest Winchester. She's across the room before he even knows she's moving. 

Her hands flutter over Sammy nervously before she settles on gently brushing the knots of bruising over his face. He whines a little at the touch. 

Dean wants to murder someone. What kind of a creature could do this kind of thing to someone as caring as his little brother? Even for a demon… it's pretty low. 

"Is he going to be okay?" Gabriel asks hesitantly from where he stands beside Castiel. The pair of them anxiously await the diagnosis; Gabriel fidgeting and Cas making some scary-intense eye contact with Sam's wounds. Dean's just trying to make sure that he doesn't fly into a blind rage and rip a throat out when he's cradling 112 pounds of skin and bones. 

Anna's brow is creased in concentration as she trails her fingers across the many bumps and sick purple splotches. She gently prods at Sam's swollen, red mouth with her fingertips, not responding. 

"I'm going to kill them." Dean growls into the silence. His hands want to make fists, but manage to stay still on his brother. 

Cas clears his throat. "Crowley's current location is unknown-"

"Then I'll find the bastard and kick his ass for this! Nobody touches a Winchester except for anther Winchester and gets away with it!"

Gabriel snorts. The midget rips his eyes from his 'Moose' to glare at Dean. "I thought you guys were hunters-"

"Shut the fuck up or I'll sew your lips closed."

"Watch it, Dean-o. I wouldn't-"

Anna suddenly whirls. "Shut up! All of you!" Her eyes flare, lips curling back like a wild animal. "Sam needs help and all that you can do is bitch."

"Well what do you want us to do?" Dean snaps. He's fucking had enough. If these winged-dickbags can't help his brother, then he'll haul ass to Bobby's. 

The doctor raises her hand and rubs her thumb against the other fingers. "He's covered in grime. There's going to be one hell of an infection if we don't get him clean. Probably already has one." She presses her hand to his forehead. "He's burning up."

Her eyes snap to Gabriel. "How much grace do you have?"

"Not enough for what you're thinking."

"Is it enough to stop the infection?"

The midget hesitates. His golden eyes flit to the ceiling and then to Sam, curled helplessly in his brother's arms. He shifts like he's weighing options here. " …Possibly."

That's enough for the red headed angel. "Everyone out. Dean, put your brother on the bed. Gabriel, you stay."

"Woah, now wait just a damn second-" Dean made a promise. He fucking promised. He's not leaving Sam alone with a bunch of possibly-witches to do god knows what. And he told his brother that he wouldn't leave. They're going to have to pry his cold, dead hands from his little brother, and pray to their dad that Dean doesn't come back as a ghost to still hang on. 

"Any more seconds and you risk us being able to help at all."

Dean's hands tighten reflexively around Sam. "And what if I'm willing to take that chance?" He levels Anna with a cold glare. He hopes it makes her feel ready to crawl out of her meat suit.

"Are you really willing to risk his life just so that you can hold him?" Not the response he'd hoped for.

He stares, tight lipped at the angel before him. Sam shifts a little in his arms, snuggling closer into his brother's warmth. No one but the youngest Winchester makes any noise; a small snuffling when he breathes through his broken nose and weakened lungs. 

"I'm not." Gabriel says suddenly. He looks at Sam like he's the Messiah for a second before he blinks and the look is gone, eyes skirting back up to Dean. "I'm not willing to risk it. I'll give him all that I have left if it means he lives. Because I certainly don't have enough to pull him out of hell later."

Dean fidgets. He doesn't want to leave his brother. The very though of it makes his stomach do gymnastics. He waits a beat. Then two. Eventually the war in his head comes to the decision that it's to either leave him temporarily now, or keep him and let him die.

And Dean will star in a rom-com before he lets Sam die.

He stands painfully slowly and shuffles to the bedside. 

Making his muscles move right now is the hardest thing he's ever had to do. It's like being damn near conjoined as he bends over and lays Sam gently on the bed.

His little brother makes a horrible mewling noise that tears at his soul with the force of a rabid animal. It's like Sam knows that he's being left. He squirms and his brow pinches as if it hurts. Probably does, poor kid, yet he still clings to Dean desperately like a tick until he has to be pried off.

Once he's not stuck to Dean, he curls in on himself. Anna slips her hand into Sam's to replace the warmth there. He stops wriggling, but keeps the bitch-face. 

Dean shucks off his leather jacket and presses it to the limp claw that Sam's other hand has made. It takes a second before the thin fingers instinctively creak open and grasp at the material.

It makes Dean give a watery smile. He feels selfish, but at least he knows that Sam needs him as much as he needs Sam. "You make him better." He commands darkly to the Angels. 

Gabriel looks somberly at the hunter. The guy- usually so full of life and energy-has the same aura as he would if someone had just told him happy hour's been cancelled. "We'll try."


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean has a "wtf" moment and makes some plans. Castiel is both good and bad at being a human. 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for the awesome comments (I really needed it. Thanks :)) This chapter should be better than the last one since I'm not such a mess anymore :P  
> Have fun reading!

Dean waits in the car. 

Not really waiting, per say; he lies in the back seat and stares at the ceiling. Just lays there and watches the snow fall outside the window and his breath puff up in cloud above him while his thoughts swirl around like a dead fish flushed down the toilet. 

It's cold. He wonders if this is what Sam had felt like when he was frozen and hungry on a street corner. Laying down his arms to beg people he doesn't know for a small slice of the Mercy-pie. 

Except, Dean isn't begging people; he's begging freaking angels. He's not sure how to feel about that, so he's going to ignore it for the time being. But as soon as they're done being useful to Sam, he's going to bundle his brother up in a cocoon of blankets and haul ass until the tires wear through. 

There's a knock on the window. 

"Dean?" Cas's voice is muffled through the glass. Dean jerks to look at him upside down, then shoots up. What the hell is this guy doing as a preacher? He should be a goddam ninja with how silent he moves. 

Dean throws open the car door, feet hitting the asphalt a second later, ready to run inside. "Is Sam alright?" 

"I do not know. There has been no noise from the room."

Dean goes limp against the leather seat like an overused chew-toy, scowling. "Dammit, Cas. I told you to only bother me if it was about Sam." 

Cas looks appropriately chastised at just the words, eyebrows drawing together in concern. "I am sorry, Dean."

The hunter just glares and slams the door to create a barrier between him and the angel. Ex-angel. Whatever. 

Dean kicks his feet out on the seat and lays down again; shifting around a bit- because he fucking lost his comfy spot- before he crosses his arms over his chest and resumes brooding. He closes his eyes to try and sleep. Fat chance at that when he keeps seeing Sam, beaten and filthy; looking as if he'd been fucking cheese-grated. 

Dammit, this is all his fault. He should never have let Sam go to college in the first place. If anything, he should have dropped the kid off at a church when he was a baby so that little Sammy would be spared from all the shit. He opens his eyes to glare at the snow like it personally offended him. 

And Cas is still there. 

Watching him. 

"Fuck!"

Cas tilts his head, eyes still piercing into Dean's fuck'n soul. 

The hunter growls, wiggles around to get on his knees, and cranks the window down. "What?" It's open just enough for his eyes to be bared to the cold outside and his scowl to be highly visible. 

The ex-angel shifts. "It is cold out here." He looks at the sky, then at the snow. 

"No shit. Go back inside."

"Could I… come in with-"

"No. Go away and wait for your flock."

Is he pouting? 'Angel of the Lord' pouting? What the hell is Dean's life? "But-"

Dean rolls up the window and settles down again. He swears, if the guy does not fucking leave he's gonna find that holy switch blade and shank the fool to kingdom come. He's not in the mood right now to be fucked with, puppy eyes or not. 

He watches Cas frown before hesitantly shuffling away. 

Good. The doe-eyed man-child really shouldn't be in proximity to Dean right now anyway. Who knows what will happen when the hunter is hopped up on adrenaline, fear, and rage. 

Dean tries to sleep again, listening to cars rush by outside. What a Christmas this has been. And here he thought he'd be able to give Sammy a decent present to maybe start to make up for all the shit that happened on his watch. Apparently, it was too much for him to have a dream like that. 

The seat is uncomfortable beneath his back. It's hard and his body heat is doing nothing to keep him warm. He should go inside. He should wait for Team Heaven to be done with his brother so that he can steal Sam away. 

That's it then. The second they're done with Sammy, Dean is getting the pair of them the hell out of dodge. He hopes he won't have to steal the godly knife, but if that's what it comes to…. 

Dean sits up, back cracking in protest like he's sixty years old, and climbs out. 

Only for his feet to his something soft and for him to fucking face plant as his foot slips. 

"What the hell?"

"Hello, Dean."

Castiel is lying on his back, snuggled tightly in his beige trench coat, right beneath the door. He's sprawled out like he's sunbathing, light snow dusting his sex-hair and eyelashes. And now Dean's feet are lying across his stomach, two dark smears from where his boots had slipped on the man's gut. 

"What the fuck!"

Cas looks at him like Dean hasn't just stepped on his stomach. "I fail to see how…" he makes a face, nose scrunching up in distaste "…fucking… has anything to do with this."

"Wha- I- Um- what are you doing out here?" Dean's not usually so flustered. But it's not everyday he steps on an angel laying on the ground next to his car. What the fuck anyway? He thought the guy went inside! Who's nuts enough to lay in the snow like this? Dean can already feel it melting into his clothes to make for one uncomfortably cold and slick outfit. 

"I did not wish for you to be alone."

Dean's heart stutters. "What?"

"I did not wish for-"

"Yeah. I heard you the first time. Just… why?"

Cas looks down right confused. His face is smothered in a 'why wouldn't I do this' expression as they lay there. "I… do not understand." He says hesitantly. 

Dean shakes his head. "Me neither." And the absurdity of the whole thing hits him. Here he is, on the ground next to a 'Warrior of God' who he just stepped on, while his little brother is being healed from his time as a demon's punching bag.

The. Fuck. 

Cas starts to sit up. "If you do not want me-"

"No. No, it's… fine." Dean says breathily as he rolls over, pulls his legs off of the ex-angel, and scoots to lie next to him. There's still a good eight inches between them, but it's weirdly… intimate. Lying there like they just had sex. 

He rubs a stinging hand over his face and tries to banish the thought. There's road salt embedded in his palms from where his hands had hit the ground first. 

"You should not worry so. Sam is strong."

Oh shit. This is gonna be a chick-flick moment. Dean can tell by the way the back of his throat burns and Cas is getting all emotional. Well… kind of emotional. 

"I know that." He can't help but snap. Goddam it, he will. Not. Cry. 

"That is good." The guy is totally unfazed. He squints at the bright, gray, cloudy sky. "I have watched it snow from heaven. But I have never seen it from below." A pink tongue appears from between Castiel's lips and tentatively pokes at a flake as it lazily drifts down. 

Dean smothers his budding hard-on with thoughts of Sam being tortured. It does the trick nicely, pants-tent deflating at the first imagined-punch. 

They lie in silence. Cas watches the sky with fascination. Dean watches Cas. He clears his throat. "We should… probably go inside." His voice is weirdly husky. Must be the fuck'n cold. 

Cas locks eyes with him, then shrugs. He scrapes his arms out, splaying like a dead cockroach to try and get up. Dean huffs a laugh and rolls over onto his stomach before clambering to his feet. 

At this point, Cas is just waving his limbs. The ice beneath him doesn't provide for much grip to roll over, let alone to get vertical. Dean thinks it's an odd thing; that such an ancient being, so powerful and wise, can't stand on his own. Poetic-sounding if he thinks about it for too long. 

Which he doesn't; he offers his hand to the guy. After a suitable amount of laughter, of course.

"Thank you, Dean." Cas's face is a little flushed. His nose is pink. 

Fuck. Think of Sammy, think of Sammy….

Cas shakes himself like a bird, flinging snow everywhere. "Anna and Gabriel should not be long now." He assures, heading off towards the back entrance of the church. 

Dean locks the Impala up and makes to follow the guy, knocking some snow off his treads on the tires, before he looks down at the imprints they had made. 

His looks like a fucking seal dropped out of Baby and wallowed on the ground. Cas's is neater with a clear outline of a-

Dean chokes on his own spit. 

"Dean? Are you coming?"

-fucking snow angel.

He looks up to Cas, standing there with an innocent look on his face, and then back down again. All wide blue eyes and a pink bunny-nose. 

The dude has no idea what he accidentally created. 

"Y-yeah." Dean clears his throat and tears his eyes away. The ex-angel is holding the door open for him, hot air rushing out. "Yeah. I'm coming."


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's healing is complete. Honestly, not much happens tho. 
> 
> It's short because I'm tired guys. I'll probably go back and fix it after I get a few Zzzs. I think that Dean and Cas should have a burger eating contest in the beginning, but my thoughts are too scattered for that right now. ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cleaned up this chapter the day after I posted. It's no longer just a stream of consciousness now, so if you read it when it was posted (7-10-18) then you should read it again now :P 
> 
> If you're reading this after 7-11-18, then have fun with the good version of this chapter!! :D
> 
> Have fun guys!

Fucking 'Angel of the Lord' loves burgers with a passion. It's damn near inhuman.

He eats like a hyena, stuffing his cheeks with half-chewed food so that he can cram more in.

Not saying Dean isn't ravenous himself right now, he's always hungry. But damn. Cas has eaten five full-sized hamburgers in the past thirty minutes. He has potential to be a competitive eater at this rate.

"You know, angels do not eat." Cas muses around a mouthful of food. "We can taste nothing but molecules and do not require energy in that way." He crams the last of his burger in and swallows, inspecting his fingers like he wants to lick them clean. "I never knew that it was so enjoyable."

"Yeah? Well what about Gabriel?"

"Gabriel has a significant sweet tooth. He enjoy all the… pleasures of fraternizing with humans even though he himself is not one." A confused look crosses the ex-angel's face and he pauses in unwrapping his next burger. "Of course, Gabriel is quite special. I have never heard an angel speak of procreation with such reverence as he does."

Dean drops his head to press against the top of his cold beer. "I did not want to know that." He groans. "I swear, you're like a regular Chatty Cathy."

Dean takes a bite of his own hamburger and washes it down with alcohol. Unlike Cas, he can't eat at light speed.

"I thought that humans spent otherwise unfilled time discussing matters of irrelevance." The ex-angel shrugs.

Dean can't help but laugh. "How long have you been human for?"

Cas stops eating and looks at the ceiling like he's either calculating a differential equation or praying. "I… do not know. Time has never been important because of my immortal status. Or, previously immortal status that is. I suppose Gabriel would know."

Dean huffs and shakes his head. He's not sure if it's the warm buzz of beer or the nerves finally getting to him, but he finds Cas both hilarious and exasperating. He cleans up his two wrappers and slides out of his seat.

The apartment is small- maybe four rooms- and located above the sanctuary of the church. It's obvious that Cas has lived here and lived alone for quite some time, however it still remains highly impersonal. There's nothing on the walls, all of the dishes are neatly put away, no trinkets or knick-nacks around.

There is, however, a small body-shaped imprint on the couch. Which leads Dean to believe that is where the archangel stays when he crashes unannounced on his little brother.

When Anna finally comes through the flimsy door separating Dean from his little brother, it's long after Cas has consumed at least twelve quarter-pounder hamburgers. The ex-angel has passed out on the couch, limbs sprawled everywhere. Half of them are on Dean's lap as the hunter watches tv; the both of them nursing food babies. 

All of that is forgotten the moment that the red headed angel slips into the tiny living room. All of Dean's thoughts come to a shuddering halt, fixated on his brother. 

"Is he alright? Did you fix him?" Dean moves to get up, jolting Cas awake. The ex-angel blinks owlishly before he realizes what's happening. 

Anna looks at them tiredly. Her hair is limp and her face pale, but she still manages a wavering smile. "It… took a lot. But yes. Sam should make a full recovery." Her lab coat is speckled with blood. She strips off her soaked gloves and tosses them at the back of the couch. 

Cas stumbles a bit and hits the coffee table as he tries to stand. "How is Gabriel?" He asks. His face is creased with worry, even though the hunter beside him can't imagine giving two shits about the midget. 

"He's resting." Anna looks dejectedly over the mass of empty burger wrappers. "I see you didn't leave any." 

"Let me see my brother." Dean commands, ignoring her comment. He makes for the door like a pissed bull, making it clear that anyone who tries to stop him from seeing Sam is going to get their head lobbed off. His footsteps echo on the hard wood floor when he stomps. Luckily, Anna hurries quickly from his path, bee-lining for the fridge to find something worth eating. 

Dean throws the door tot heir makeshift clinic open, and is stopped by the sight before him. 

When Dr. Sexy had said "Gabriel is resting", Dean didn't think that she meant, "he's resting in the same bed as Sam".

The two of them are curled around each other like cats. Like the yin and yang symbol with Dean's leather jacket snuggled up to his brother's face in between them. Dean can only hope that his scent will stave off any wet dreams either of may have.

The hunter swallows the golf ball seemingly lodged in his throat and tries desperately not to be horrified at the sight of what has been done to his little brother. The same boy who followed Dean around like it was his life's mission and cried whenever an ASPCA commercial came on. 

Sam has always had a sharp jaw. He's always been a little on the lanky side of things, especially when he was a kid and his metabolism couldn't keep up with the growth spurts. 

Now he looks like a damn skeleton. His skin is pale and bloodless; a thin sheet hanging over his bones. Mostly because all the blood appears to be smeared over medical tools and discarded latex gloves. His eyes are purpled from bruises, his cheekbones angular and prominent. 

Whatever the angels have done has left Sam looking still worse for wear, but alive. His chest moves a little as he huffs out breaths. The swelling from his wounds has gone down, and even though they still appear black and fresh, his face is no longer puffed up like he's having an allergic reaction. 

Cas makes his way to Gabriel and hovers worriedly over the archangel, smoothing back the guy's golden hair as he sleeps peacefully. 

"Sammy? Hey. I'm here now." Dean whispers to the kid- the man- that he raised. He slides the La-Z-Boy over to the bedside and sits. 

Where the blankets have fallen down, the hunter can see stark white bandages wrapping over Sam's torso. They stretch tight across the knobs of his spine as he breathes. 

"I'm not gonna leave you again, Sammy. Ya hear me?" Dean reaches out to rub a hand over his brother's bony shoulder. 

There's not much of a reaction, except for a tiny shift. A thin muscle that ripples in response to his touch. 

Fuck. He can't loose Sam. If he looses Sam, then he's got nothing. 

"They will sleep. They will recover." Cas assures him, breaking the reverie. 

Dean can only swallow and nod. He brushes some of the newly cleaned locks from Sammy's eyes. They're soft beneath his fingertips, like kitten fur. 

"How long?" His voice cracks a little. 

Cas studies the two forms in the bed. "It is hard to say. They have both expended their energies greatly." He trails two fingers over Gabe's fist, clenched tightly onto Sam's spindly fingers. "Gabriel will heal faster. He will most likely awaken in a few hours. With Sam… it is hard to tell."

Dean blows out a puff of air. His hand has taken to almost stroking his brother's hair like he's a dog. Kid really needs a haircut. 

"Well," he kicks up his feet and pulls back. "I'll be here when they wake."


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam has a dream. Feat. Ruby the Demon-bitch and Kevin the Badass
> 
> I may or may not have a chance to post tomorrow, just so you guys don't think I've died when I don't ;) !! I also updated the last chapter, so you should totally check that out if you haven't :D 
> 
> Have fun!

Sam dreams, and for once it's not about Jess. 

Nope. 

It's about Ruby. Ruby with her long, dark hair and fox-like smile. In her thin black dress and blood red heels. She's a dangerous woman, Sam had known that even back then. Something about the flint in her eyes, the cruel turn of her lips, the red in her ledger. Or maybe it was the knife she had sewn into her bra, Sam can't decide. 

They sit together underneath someone's porch. They don't know who's but it smelled of fresh-baked rolls and pecan pie when they had walked past. The smell- the sweet tang of sugary filling and glazed crust- had made his eyes burn because suddenly all that Sam could think about was Dean. So when Ruby had pulled him to his knees and shoved him through a small break in the vinyl crosshatching, he hadn't protested. 

Under the house, its moist and smells like death. Their bodies pressed together in a long line to share heat. It's cold as balls outside, the damp soil beneath them leeching whatever warmth they have left. Sam can't stop shaking. His back aches dimly. His face keeps flaring in a distant pain. Which is odd, because he can't remember doing anything to it. 

"Fucking family holiday. No one wants a good lay when they're eating turkey with grandma." Ruby grouses. She's a little high right now, her pupils all blown like black holes and her body strangely lax in the cold. 

"C-can't really blame them." He mutters, tilting his head up a bit to offer her access at that spot of warmth he has hidden under his chin. It's the hottest place he's got, the strong flow of blood inside him making it so. Sam's spine locks with pain for a second before it ebbs away again. 

She hesitates, because she's Ruby and she's always been one hell of a kickass bitch who doesn't accept help from anyone. An outcast even within the call girl community.

But eventually she complies after a long second, resting her fucking ice cube of an ear against his jugular where she can probably hear his pulse. Her hair whips around in the slight breeze and tickles his nose. 

"Castiel is having some sort of Thanksgiving meal." She informs him. "I saw them on my way here. All lined up to go inside."

Sam hums in response. He had seen it too; probably two hundred people waiting in the cold outside of the church to go in and have a meal of deli-sliced turkey, prepackaged mashed potatoes, frozen rolls, and hospital jell-o. 

And yet they had come from far and wide- whole families sometimes- for the free food and heating. Congregating like ants at a picnic. 

"Cas wanted me to come." He says. 

"So why aren't you there?"

"Because I don't want it. Seems… contradictory. It's a family holiday and I don't have one to spend it with."

"Bullshit." She tells him. But he can feel her small smile against his skin, the scrape of teeth. She reminds him of a werewolf sometimes. He wonders if she would rip his throat out with her teeth should he ask. 

"No it's not."

"I'm high as balls right now, Sam, and I can still smell your bullshit. Now fess up."

The silence drags on. He can feel her hot breath on his neck. Not in a sexy way either, she'd made it very clear upon their first meeting that if he needed a good fuck he would have to pay her for it, and Sam frankly doesn't have the money for that. And Jess has left his heart rug-burned anyway. 

"I want someone else to have it." He tells her eventually. 

A particularly cold blast knocks the breath out of him for a second. Ruby presses closer, like she wants to crawl into his skin to keep warm. Sam thinks distantly that he must be useful to her alive like this or she'd gut him like a horse and use his hide as a coat. "And why's that?" She asks, leaning up to arch an eyebrow at all of the "bullshit" she's probably sensing. 

Sam shrugs. 

He doesn't even know himself. But it feels right. And all that he's ever wanted to do is the right thing. Goddam. He's so tired. And his nail beds hurt for some reason. 

She leaves it at that, the high eventually overriding whatever part of her mind that cared, and she falls asleep against him. 

Sam watches her as she rests. Jess used to lay against him like this too. So vaunerable. And look where that has gotten him: a broken heart and a life of misery. He'd have killed himself long ago if he didn't think that he had a chance of coming back as a crazy ghost. 

There's footsteps that crunch on the fallen leaves outside. Sam tenses even more and folds into a ball around Ruby. He's sure that they can't be seen from the sidewalk, but the steps keep getting closer. 

A pair of blue Converse stop outside the hole. All that Sam can think is that if they get caught, they're so going to jail. 

"I thought I heard the sound of desperation." 

Sam lets out a breath. "Jesus, Kevin. You're the damn king of jump scares."

The high schooler bends over and smirks in a way that makes Sam think the guy has way too much fun scaring him. Little sadist. 

"You two getting frisky or something under my girlfriend's house?"

Sam blinks. "Your… what?" He does a visual sweep of Kevin in all of his hormonal glory, leaning over to look at the pair of them curled like possums beneath the porch. 

"Brainy is the new sexy, ya know." Kevin deadpans. 

Sam can't help the burst of laughter that fights it's way out. "Kevin, you dog." Which makes the kid's lips give a sort of genuine twist before they fall back into a condescending scowl. 

"Hey, I don't mind you guys under there, just no sex noises, okay?"

Sam snorts. He thinks for a moment that something brushes his arm, but when he goes to see, there's nothing there. He hears the screen door of the house squeak open above him suddenly. Kevin shoots up. 

"Kevin, what are you doing? Are those cats under there again?" Heels click over the wood and rain dust down onto the ex-hunter and the conked-out prostitute sleeping on him. 

"No, mom. It's nothing. Thought I saw a raccoon."

"Well come on back in. Pie is served." 

Sam's nose is slowly leaking hot blood down his face. He wipes it up and turns to the girl beside him. Her hand must be clamped over his under all their layers because he can feel her palm hot on his. 

Jesus, if she didn't wake up from Kevin's tiger mom screeching, Ruby must have really taken the good stuff. 

He lets his eyes slip closed. Prays to God and all the angels that he won't have any nightmares. Even as the pain in his back and face and ribs keeps getting more and more persistent. 

He thinks he hears someone calling his name. Maybe. But his thoughts are slow and thick like hot tar. 

It's not long before he feels as though he's falling backwards into oblivion. Reality slipping through his hands like a bar of soap. 

He should be scared. He should panic as he falls into the unknown. 

He's not.


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel and Sam have a chick-flick moment in the dream realm. 
> 
> I'm back bitches! Enjoy this slightly longer chapter full of the Feels ;P

He's falling. 

And falling. 

It's black. He should hit the ground soon now. But he doesn't. Just keeps going. 

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize that the sparks in his vision are stars. They have to be, because there's the moon, like god let some white-out drop from the brush as he was painting the constellations. 

Sam waits for the ground to swallow up his impact. He waits for a hole to open beneath him so that he can be sucked straight down into hell in one big gulp. 

All of his senses have been given a thorough fucking, he realizes. The stars are starting to blur with colors and he's cold and hot at the same time. The air smells like Dean and the grass against his back is scratchy and throbbing. He might be falling still. He can't really tell if he's stopped or not. 

He sees faces, he thinks, but they slide around and morph like blobs in a lava lamp. Sam can't pin one down long enough and by the time he decides who's face it is, it's someone else's. 

It's like a Salvador Dali painting. Like an acid trip on a hot summer night. Everything twists in an explosive kaleidoscope. 

"You must have one hell of a martyr complex."

It's Dean's voice. But he can't see him. Why can't he see him?

"Always did. Sacrificial son of a bitch."

Sam tries to move his head. It feels weighted and thick and goddammit he doesn't have the energy for this right now. "D'n?" His tongue is hot in his mouth, sticky like cupcake glaze. 

There's a muffled thump beside him and some soft cursing. "Ah. Son of a cherub-" a bright flash of hot, golden light sears at Sam. Not his eyes, like expected, but as if his brain has been exposed to the sun. It's over in a second, leaving him gasping. 

"Aw, hell. Sorry, Samsquatch."

Sam stops falling. 

And Gabriel's face is there above him, looking down like a cat trying to wake its owner. "You are having one hell of a fever dream, Sammoose."

Gabriel sits back and whistles lowly. "Damn. So this is what you dream about? It's like frick'n… I don't even know. Like you melted down a jumbo box of crayons."

The ex-hunter groans and sits up, grinding his palms into his eyes before blinking wearily at his surroundings several times. "What the hell…?" All of the colors are wrong. The grass in the field is red. The trees in the distance are orange. The dark night sky is a whirlpool of every cold color there is. 

And Gabriel is bathed in a golden light with six wings fanning around him. 

Sam jolts and scrambles away, kicking out with his feet. "What the hell! You-you have… w-wha-" he stops to pant as the archangel looks down at himself. His eyes slide over his new appendages. They glow softly, each feather shining like it's been dipped in gold. The primaries carry a rose-tint which glitters like diamonds, as the row of coverlets play host to a white-ish sheen. 

The expression on Gabe's face is unreadable for a long moment as he slowly tests them, moving one of the top pair; folding it and unfolding it. 

Sam's mind runs wild for a moment, commenting on how beautiful the shorter man looks, sitting there in the scarlet grass, appearing every inch the angel that he truly is. The man looks like he's a Grecian statue dipped in gold with his fucking flaxen hair and honey eyes. 

Motherfucker. It must be some sort of holy aura he has that's piquing Sam's interest this way. 

Gabriel hums in appreciation after a moment, breaking Sam from his reverie. "This is your dream, Moose, not mine. I just got plopped in here for recovery. Since I had to be all up in you to heal." He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. Two of the wings jerk a little, like they're trying to get in on the flirting. 

"You… healed me." Sam can't keep the incredulous tone out of his voice. Or stop staring at the wings because they're so damn sparkly. 

"Oh yeah. Had to go all the way in too. Bottomed out on the first thrust, you were so loose and ready for-"

That helps to snap Sam out of his awed daze. He curls his lip. "I'm going to throw up. Please tell me you didn't actually…."

Gabriel smirks. "Naw. Just had to go in with my Grace and fix a few things. I saved the freaky stuff for when you can properly moan my name." All six of the wings fluff at the idea, before they seem to wilt a little. "Hurt like a bitch too." Gabe mutters as an afterthought. 

He shakes himself. "But hey, now you're better. Or getting better at least. And I'm pretty sure that Anna put us in the same bed once I conked out because Cassie only has one." The archangel settles himself daintily, with his jean-clad legs folded beneath him and his wings slowly beginning to test their range of mobility. "Now I guess we wait until you wake up."

Sam relaxes from his rigid posture, sitting back and drawing his knees to his chest in a loose fetal-position. His whole body feels like a three-day-old bruise. He studies the angel across from him as the guy extends his wings until the joints crack and the muscles tremble. 

"So… is this actually what you look like?" Sam can't help but ask. 

Gabe gives a few experimental flaps. "What, the wings?" He makes a calculating face at them. "Eh… kinda? They're the only part of my true form that can manifest in this plane of existence. Actually they're the only part that I can use when I'm in this vessel."

Sam moans and drops his head, the muscles in his back protesting loudly. "Because this isn't you, it's a vessel. And you're possessing some poor bastard."

Gabriel actually laughs. He throws his head back and the corners of his eyes crease as he smiles, like it's the funniest fucking thing to be wearing someone else like a bodysuit. "No, this guy was totally into it. I think he was a priest? I don't really remember. It was a long time ago."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Still can't believe you're a fucking angel."

"Archangel."

"Whatever. You haven't stopped flirting since we met!"

"And exactly what made you think that we angels are any better than humans? Hell, my brother had a pissing match with god and became the devil himself." The wings flare a little. Sam wants to laugh because of how expressive they are. But he bites his tongue. 

"Fuck. I forgot. Lucifer is your brother."

"Yeah. Older brother. He raised me."

"Oh sh-. Satan raised you?! How was that piece of information unimportant up until now?"

The wings spread out a little to make him look bigger like he's been insulted. "Oh please, Samsquatch. That means nothing. I raised Cassie, and look at how he turned out!"

"Yeah, he's a good person, unlike you sometimes." Sam doesn't mean to be so harsh, but if he doesn't stomp down on these feelings ASAP, there will be consequences. 

"You wound me, My Moose. I was going to point out how bad he is at being human compared to moi. I have it down to a T." He snaps his fingers like the fucking diva that he is, the wings flaring and puffing to exaggerate Gabriel's emotions. 

Sam gives him a Bitch Face. He's still trying so hard not to stare at those fuck'n wings so he looks out over the horizon. After a long beat of uncharacteristic silence from the archangel, he speaks again. 

"How bad was it…?"

He can feel the angel studying him. "It… I have seen worse."

"That's not an answer."

Gabriel sighs. "Sam," which suddenly makes everything so much more intense and real because Gabe has probably never used his actual name. It's strangely sobering. "You don't want me to tell you all of the things I had to do to make sure you didn't die."

When Sam looks at him again, the skin around Gabriel's eyes is pulled taut with worry; his mouth settled in a grim line. For a moment, the ex-hunter can really see the centuries old being that is sitting before him. Even though he's wearing acid-wash jeans and an Aerosmith shirt. 

"You…" Gabe shifts a little closer. His wings unfurl and stretch towards Sam until he can feel a rippling, soft heat. "You weren't gonna last very long, Sammy." He licks his lips and inclines his head. "It's not just what that bastard Crowley did to you either. You've practically been on death's door since we met."

Sam can't help but lean into the wings. He can't really feel them, the dull ache of his body masks it too well. "What do you mean 'since we met'? Was I sick or something?"

Gabe shakes his head as if to clear it of all the bad thoughts. "It's nothing, it's just… you're tired. You want it to end. I know, I can see it."

Sam jolts. "What? No, I-"

"Sam."

He sighs and lets his shoulders fall unburdened until he's practically slumped onto Gabe. Even though the archangel is smaller, he's sturdier than Sam's lanky form. His body is hot; the heat coming off in almost waves. The wings provide another blanket of warmth as they wrap around the ex-hunter. 

"Yeah… I'm pretty tired."

Suddenly, the archangel's hands are on his shoulders, pulling him back until the ex-hunter is laying half on the guy's lap with his long stick-legs out in the grass. It's oddly comfortable. 

"Then rest, Moosey. I'm an angel: I watch over people. It's what I do."


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John fuck'n Winchester.
> 
> So I was re-reading the beginning of this thinking "this SO isn't going the direction I thought it would, but what the hell" and realized that I never actually explained why Dean left John in the first place when he doesn't seem to actually be on a hunt. 
> 
> So welcome to sub-plot number fuck'n four or something. Have fun :D

Dean is convinced that the universe is out to get him. Or apparently it could be God, now that he officially does exist. But it doesn't really matter who's pulling the strings, all that the hunter knows is that whoever they are, they like watching him squirm. 

They must get off on Dean irreversibly fucking up or something. 

The first time he can recall was when he was six and almost fed baby Sammy glass. It's just gone downhill from there: ganking one of his classmates before realizing the guy was human, getting caught having gay car sex by his little brother, walking into some poor woman's hotel room thinking it was his own, answering the door to Cas in his boxers with a loaded gun stuffed down the back- the list keeps going. 

But this one takes the cake; tops the list. Numero uno of all the shit things that Dean can accidentally get himself into:

Butt-dialing John Winchester. 

Which doesn't even make any sense: he's not on speed-dial. He's not even listed as an emergency number. No, Daddy Dearest's contact is buried somewhere amongst the random strippers and the pizza parlors. Hidden in the graveyard of once-used hookup phone numbers. 

And he can't get away with it either, because Dean had gone and opened his stupid fuck'n trap as soon as Cas had pointed out the tinny voice coming from his back pocket. And once you say "oh shit, sorry man. I must've butt-dialed you", you can't take it back. 

And if there's one person to never butt-dial; it's John fuck'n Winchester. 

"Dean?"

Fuck. 

"Uh- yeah. Ahem. Yessir?"

He can almost hear the silent judgement; feel the glare coming through the line. There's no noise in the background to lessen it. Just the overwhelming oppression of a vaguely pissed Winchester. And Dean may be irritated at the man, but it makes him feel like a damn nine year old again.

Then John coughs his smokers rattle, won by too many nights in sleazy bars. "I've been meaning to call ya. Where are you, son?"

Dean flounders for a minute. He feels like a baby deer on ice trying to search for what exactly to say. "I… um. Colorado." It comes out weak. 

Shit. Shit, why did he say that? It's the truth alright, but what is his Dad gonna think he's doing in fucking Colorado when John knows that Dean is on sabbatical. 

Weed. His dad is gonna think he's doing weed. Aw hell. 

"Colorado." John parrots. He says it with so much distaste. "What're you do'in there?"

His mouth forms the word "weed". By god, he almost says it too, because Dean's subconscious is just dying to dig him a grave. "We… uh. Me 'an Bobby figure it's as good a place as any."

"You been talk'n to Bobby?"

"Yeah. He gives me updates sometimes. Called him a few days ago."

There's the soft clink of glass. A thump of a bottle on wood. John is drinking. Not enough to be stone drunk just yet, but enough for him to have a good head start on his son. Because Dean is going to need a whole bottle of Jack Daniels after this. 

Cas is sitting patiently at the kitchen island on a rickety stool. He's watching the hunter with those piercing blue eyes as he chews thoughtfully on a slice of bacon. The ex-angel had all but dragged Dean out of the bedroom Sam and Gabriel had been stashed in, insisting that Dean make them breakfast. 

Dean had protested- loudly of course- but finally complied after Anna shared a horror story about Cas's cooking attempts. And it had been a rather long and sleepless night of vigilance. 

"So, you working a case, Dad?" Dean prays that his voice didn't crack. He's pretty sure it didn't, but John Winchester makes him feel like a kid again. 

"Yeah. Werewolf. Up in North Dakota. Nothing I can't handle while you're… vacationing." John spits the word "vacationing" like it's a hot coal in his mouth. Because the only thing worse than fucking up a simple salt-and-burn is taking a vacation. 

"It's not a vacation, Dad."

"Then do tell me what it is you think you're doing." 

Saving Sammy. Making sure his little brother doesn't go any further into the deep end than he already is. Doing John's fuck'n job of being Dad and Mom and fuck'n Big Brother to boot. Dean is like the Holy Trinity of Important Family Members; the Patron Saint of "Sammy First". 

Except he dropped the ball this last time. But he'll be damned before he lets Sam go again. 

Dean grits his teeth and pinches the bridge of his nose. Because this son of a bitch still thinks he has the right to ordain Dean's every move. "It's none of your business. I'm out of your way."

There is a silence on the other end. "Dean, you know you can't just throw in the towel. Once a hunter, always a hunter." John sounds exasperated. 

"I ain't 'throwing in the towel'. I'm getting the hell away from you." He's starting to seethe. That low pit of rage in the base of his stomach is fueling up. 

"I swear," John hisses "I raised you boys good. I dragged you two along with me when I could'a dumped your asses at an orphanage. And this is what you-"

"Don't you say it. Don't you dare fuck'n say it." Dean's voice is cold. His hands shake as he grips the side of the counter. He's about to explode. He wants to hang up but he can't, and he doesn't know why. "I was ready to be your soldier. I would've followed you to the damn ends of the earth. I left Sammy- who I swore to protect- because you said the fuck'n word."

"Sam left of his own-"

"Shut up. I was your fuck'n puppet. I knew it, and I didn't care. 'Cus I thought that you were a good man. A drunken ass a lot of the time, but still. A good man."

The silence thick and heavy. It crackles with unspoken curses and hatred. Dean doesn't know why he's so damn angry all of a sudden. He went from zero to one billion in five seconds. But he's on a roll, and he can't stop now. 

John must sense that because he yields. "I will admit. How I handled the situation in Phoenix was wrong. But that doesn't mean-"

There's grit in Dean's eyes. He rubs at them until they throb. He's so angry and worried about Sam and he can't fuck'n deal right now- "Oh yeah, you fuck'n handled it wrong!"

"Yes, alright? Yes, the outcome was… less than optimal. But I still believe that I made the right call. The first rule of hunting is that you can't save them all, Dean."

And that hurts. That feels like someone has ripped Dean's soul into two pieces as easy as wet newspaper. Because that is undoubtedly the hardest rule of hunting: knowing that you have to leave some of the innocent people behind. Knowing that for every one you save, there's a handful more that you can't. Or even worse, a handful that got caught in the crossfire and you're now responsible for them not getting home. 

"And what about the second rule, Dad?" Dean's not blazing with fury anymore. He's tired. He wants Sammy safe and he wants this nightmare to be over with. "That you save the ones that you can. Those people didn't have to die."

"Dean…."

"No." His head hurts. Right behind his eyes, like a botched lobotomy. "I… I can't, Dad. Not-not now." 

He hangs up. 

Instead of throwing the phone at the wall like he wants to, Dean lets it drop lifelessly from his hands and onto the counter with a clack. 

"Dean?" Cas's hand is warm on his shoulder. Dean doesn't remember seeing the guy move, but here he is, all up in Dean's personal space. It's weird that it doesn't bother him like it usually would. 

And damn it, he does not lean back into the touch. He. Does. Not. 

God must be fucking laughing at him because Dean feels like a complete and utter fuck-up right now. He honestly hopes he goes to hell for this so that he can serve the appropriate punishment. 

"…Dean…"

He lets his head hang between his shoulders and his hands shake as they grip the faux marble. "I've really fucked up on this, haven't I, Cas?" He hates how broken he sounds. Winchesters aren't supposed to break this easily. 

"Dean-"

"Cas! Dean!" There's a thump from the other room. Anna's voice filters into the kitchen. Cas jerks away. Dean refuses to acknowledge that the spot on his shoulder becomes suddenly cold. 

"Anna? Is everything alright?" Cas calls, making for the bedroom, the hunter hot on his heels. But her voice isn't panicked like Dean had originally thought. It's… excited. 

"Get in here! Gabriel's waking up!"


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel tells Sam a story as they both start to wake. 
> 
> Sorry guys, it's kinda short. And Gabriel's not as kinky as usual :/
> 
> Anyways, I will most likely not have a chance to post tomorrow (funeral and all that:((. 
> 
> But if you find yourself bored and looking for something to read, I suggest checking out my like 2 meager bookmarks. Those are both awesome stories which I recommend!
> 
> If you're looking for a tear-jerker to ruin your life on, then you should read Shield of God by Midnight_Ravencrow. I promise you'll need tissues ;)

"-and I was like 'what the hell? Is that an animal or something?' So I went over to look at whatever was making this horrible noise. I mean, no joke, it sounded like a whale call, but we're in a frick'n garden, so it can't be that."

Gabriel has his legs sprawled out in the red grass. His right thigh is cushioning Sam's head; serving the honorable duty of The Pillow. The golden wings are draped over the ex-hunter protectively like a blanket of sunshine and warmth. It's nice, in its own way, though it does little to help the steadily increasing discomfort of his body. 

"So I peek through the trees. And what do I see?"

He's been talking nonstop in an attempt to keep the ex-hunter distracted from the pain. Sam doesn't even think he's taking a second to breathe properly. Every now and then, when he gets to an exciting part, the wings will twitch. They want to move and sway with the plot of the story, but the archangel is making a conscious effort to keep them still. 

"There in the bushes is this tiny fledgling. He's still all downy feathers and stick-legs. And I'm not kidding, Sammy, he looks at me with the biggest eyes I have ever seen- like those mega jawbreakers. All blue and teary and fuck'n adorable."

Gabriel's mouth curls up in a genuine smile for a hot second at the memory. Sam's shins hurt suddenly with the ferocity of a wildfire in his nervous system. 

"And I swear, I accidentally scared the living daylights outta him. He starts thrashing around and squawking. And screaming, man has he got a set of lungs." 

Sam can feel the muscle clench beneath his head whenever Gabe gestures wildly. He uses his whole body to tell the tale. 

"And now I gotta calm him down. I must've spent hours trying to talk him off the proverbial edge. See, his wings were stuck in the vines." A feathery appendage not draped over Sam comes up and the archangel smoothes a hand down it. Like his own wings ache with sympathy at the thought. They must be very sensitive, Sam realizes. "And he was sobbing so hard that I couldn't understand a word he was trying to say."

Gabriel lets his wing drop and takes to gently picking stray locks of hair from Sam's eyes. The ex-hunter would love to tell short-stack to fuck off, but he feels heavy and exhausted- lying out limp as a dead possum. He couldn't move even if he tried. 

"Finally, he let me help untangle him. And the moment he was free? Boy, he was climbing up me like some sort of land-octopus with wings. And I mean, how was I supposed to say no? The kid was all shaky and pitiful and refused to let go of me. He looked like one of those abused puppy commercials."

Gabriel plucks a dandelion from the grass and studies it. For a few moments, Sam's head feels fuzzy and thick, but then the sensation passes, moving on to a more ravaging pain in his teeth. 

"So I took him with me. He refused to leave my side until he was at least a good dozen centuries old."

He puffs at the white ball at the top of the stem. The seeds scatter into the dream realm field. 

"Snot-nosed little leech. 'Course he kinda hates me now. But that's because I left him for all the earthly wonders down here."

Sam finally gathers the energy to roll his head over and peer at the angel above him. It's a funny change of perspective. He wonders if this is what it's like to be short. 

"H-he followed you, right? And now you're crashing on his c-couch." His throat feels dry and achy. He doesn't want to talk, he just wants to lie there and let the ground swallow him and Gabe's wings smother him with warmth. 

Gabriel frowns a little and plucks a red blade of grass from the ex-hunter's floppy hair. It's like he can sense all the levels of discomfort coursing through Sam's body right now. But what the hell does Sam know: he probably can. "Yeah, well he didn't come here for me, that's for sure. He's all pissy because I left him there after Lucifer decided to reek havoc with Daddy's favorite creations. And all my siblings were at each other's throats- literally." The archangel snorts. "It's funny, you'd think Dad would love us angels the most because he keeps us so close and stuff. But he actually favors you guys."

It sounds a little distasteful. A little like he's picking at an old wound, so Sam doesn't say anything about how he sure as hell doesn't feel like the favorite kid. 

"I mean, you have no talent. No abilities. You're the size of ants compared to us, wandering around in your own little bubbles and doing menial tasks until you die in the blink of an eye. Nearly all of you hate him, don't know him, or get the story all wrong." He flicks the stem of the dandelion away. It's kind of an angry motion. He can't exactly get up and pace with repressed rage when Sam is using the guy as a pillow. "Maybe that's what makes you so favorable. It's that he knows he can't have all of you that makes you that much more appealing."

Sam shifts. His back is thumping with a dull pain and his head hurts like hell. He knows that Gabe is just trying his hardest to distract the pain with alluring stories from the dawn of time. Genesis told by God's Messenger himself. It's hard to concentrate though. 

"That and angels are really missing out. If there's anything that I've learned from the centuries that I've been down here, it's that being God's Warrior doesn't have nearly as many perks as being one of the sheep."

Sam's never thought of it like that. He's tried not to think too much on why God would just flat out allow bad shit to happen to his creation. Fortunately for him, another wave of pain and nausea crashes over him and effectively silences any deep thoughts. 

"I mean, you guys got all the Free Will. The sex. The booze. The ability to love. The sugar- God the sugar." His eyes roll back into his head like he's gonna orgasm just at the thought of high fructose corn syrup. 

Sam doesn't have time to be thoroughly annoyed. His stomach heaves with a flare of pain. A whimper slips past his lips. 

Gabriel's fingers apply a little more pressure to the seams of his skull as they card through Sam's hair. Like he's trying to massage away the pain and worry. 

"Looks like you're starting to come around, Samsquatch."

Dawn is breaking over the tree line in the distance. 

Sam buries his face in the archangel's thigh and suppresses a degrading mewl at the thought. If this is what the conscious world feels like, he would much rather stay buried in slumber with Gabriel. 

The pressure of the angel's fingers stutter a second. 

"Oops. Looks like I'm waking too." Gabe takes a moment to study the frail man lying across his lap. "You know, I could send you back to sleep as soon as I wake up. Give you more time to heal." 

Sam takes a rattling breath and shakes his head no. He might as well just wake up already. Get it the fuck over with. Assure Dean that he's fine. 

"Hmm. I don't know, Sammoose. Maybe I'll send you deeper anyway. You're not going to accomplish anything but jumping head-first into an Olympic-sized pool of pain if you come to now."

The angel's visage stumbles again. The warmth of his wings disappears for a flash like someone has waved the covers. Sam doesn't really have time to think over the pros and cons of each decision. He digs his fingers into the fabric of Gabe's jeans, trying to hold on. 

He doesn't know why, but suddenly he feels the very strong urge to curl his long body around the smaller man and never let go. Maybe he's just afraid of being alone. Maybe it has something to do with Gabriel letting him rest beneath his wings. Sam has no fucking clue, and he sure as hell isn't going to fall prey to The Feels right now. 

The archangel wavers in this plane of existence for a few more seconds. The waiting sun breeches the distant skyline.

"Damn." Gabe mutters. Just before he flickers out, letting Sam's head drop with a thud to the grass. 

The sun breaks over the horizon. 

Sam is alone.


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel speaks Enochian, Cas gets sassy, Sam is drugged, and Dean feels stupid. 
> 
> I'm so sorry to Sparxgirl, who foresaw all the whump that's going to come by putting Sam under again. But I saw a chance to whump and I couldn't pass it up :) :P

The way that Gabriel wakes up reminds Dean of a duck that's been shot in the wing; a lot of treading water and thrashing and drunk Chewbacca noises. 

There's some flying limbs and somehow the archangel ends up on the floor- twisted in a blanket burrito and rolled like a cigarette- blinking dazedly at the cracked ceiling plaster. 

The first word out of the angel's mouth? "Damn."

Dean will admit that he may have been the one to forcefully scoot Gabriel off the bed in fear of the munchkin jostling Sammy. But also because he's been dying to shove the kinky bastard since he caught the guy getting all handsy with the youngest Winchester. 

Cas doesn't seem to share the sentiment, leaning worriedly over the angel with a pinch in his expression. "Gabriel? Are you alright?" Anna has backed a reasonable distance from the pair, hovering by the headboard and alternating concerned looks between the archangel and ex-hunter. 

Dean cradles his little brother against his chest a good ten feet away from them. Sam shivers violently at the sudden lack of blankets and the hunter finds himself desperately scooping the fluffy comforters like wet sand and tucking them against the frail man in his arms. 

Gabriel's response sounds like garbled Latin. "Or-Gal-Graph-Drux-Med. Ceph-Don-Van."

"Uh… what?" Dean feels a little stupid because Cas is over there listening intently to every half-formed English word that his brother utters. "I think his brains might have gotten a little fried."

By the look Cas and Anna both shoot him, that was not the right thing to say. Apparently it's normal for short-stack to do this or something. "Fam-Ur-Pal-Gon."

Cas's face relaxes a little. He finally looks away from his brother for a moment to fish around in his pocket before he produces a dum-dum mystery flavor sucker and offers it to Gabriel. 

"Gal-Gisg-Na-Mals-Un-Ger." Dean jumps when Cas speaks the same infant-babble as his brother. But with Cas it's different- rockier. The sounds are more guttural, shredded by his whiskey-wrecked voice. Dean can't stop the strange tingle that darts over his spine. Fuck his libido. Now is not the time, dammit. 

A hand untangles itself from the folds of Gabriel's warmth chrysalis and he takes the sucker with a contented hum like the overgrown child that he is. He's still pretty damn out of it, with a stoned expression and eyelids at half-mast; and now he's sucking lewdly on a sugary treat. Great. "Na-Pal-Gon-Gisg."

"English, Gabriel." Anna commands gently. 

Thank God. Dean doesn't like being left out of a conversation. And he has a sneaking suspicion that they were talking about either him or Sam because Gabriel is a gossipy high schooler like that. 

"Hmm? Oh yeah. Hey Dean-o." The archangel seems loopy. 

Anna rolls her eyes and trots over to her brothers, taking the smallest by his exposed wrist and yanking him into a sitting position. 

"Teh-Pal! My head feels like it's been Gon-Fam with a baseball bat." He massages his temples like his life depends on it. 

"I'm afraid you're down to the old human remedies. Tylenol and water." Anna tells him, gathering said items from the bedside table. 

"Oh goodie. Aren't I special."

"Quit bellyaching and take the pills."

He does so, glaring the whole way. Cas sits on the side of the bed, making the box springs creak and Gabriel flinch at the noise. He starts massaging all of his pressure points with a new desperation. "Is your Grace intact?" Cas asks. 

The look that Gabriel sends him has enough animosity and impatience to set a frozen pizza on fire. 

"You mean his life-force-thing. Right?" Dean asks. He's done being left out of this heavenly conversation just because he's a primate. He may be a little slow, and only have his high school diploma, but that doesn't mean he's completely incompetent. 

"Yes. The 'life-force-thing'. And yes. It's fine. Healing. It's… getting there." Gabriel is having a hard time stringing his thoughts together. He growls. "Gon-Pal-Un-Don!"

Cas looks at the hunter and the shaking, blanket-covered lump he has his arms wrapped around. "He says it is easier to speak in Enochian. I will translate for your benefit."

"What the… language of angels, right? I thought that wasn't an actual thing. Not that it's not a thing, but that it wasn't real." Sam makes a half-choked noise against him, effectively distracting from his brother's blundering. See, there he goes saving Dean from awkwardness again, even when he's unconscious. 

"Yes, it is real."

"Ur-Mals-Van-Fam. Gal-Or-Gisg."

"He says you are too stupid to fully understand."

"Gee. Thanks." 

But the archangel only shrugs from his seat on the floor. "Gon-Ur-Or-Van. Ceph-Med-Graph-Drux. Ged-Fam."

Cas looks a little scandalized. "He says… it is unfortunate he woke. He and… Sam-elk… were going to-" Anna starts laughing, which probably isn't a good sign. Cas's ears turn slightly red at the tips. "Uh. I believe that the closest translation means to 'procreate heavily for many hours or days'."

Dean tightens his grip on the lump and glares. He can feel the heat creeping up his neck due to the small voice in his head that wonders how exactly one 'procreates heavily' (and the even smaller one that wonders if Cas would want to-). Sam shifts a little, burying his nose into the seam of his brother's shoulder and pec. 

"Tal-Pa-Veh-Ger-Mal-Or. Drux-Med-Don-Na."

"Sam is waking up and in pain. He says we should extend his slumber to help him heal." Cas translates. 

At that, Anna is quickly gathering supplies, pulling out a bottle of clear fluid and hypodermic needle supplies. She begins to calculate how much to give him on paper. 

"Hang on, so Gabriel was in Sam's dream? Is that some sort of 'The Matrix' shit that angels can do?" Dean asks. Suddenly, the thought of either Cas or Gabriel stepping into his favorite cherry pie wet dream is the newest nightmare for him to focus on. 

"Yes, it is a practice among angels. Gabriel took shelter in Sam's dream to promote his own healing."

"Med-Van-Gon-Pa."

"He says he was not… loading for free? I am sorry, sometimes there is no clear translation." Cas looks down at his brother, as if this wouldn't be an issue if Gabriel wasn't using such big angel-words. 

"That's okay. Is… Sam alright though?" Dean asks. 

"Drux-Pa-Val-Ged-Gisg-Fam."

"He is healing. Still in pain, but he will not die." 

Dean lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and arranges some of the blankets over his brother. Sam's face is a little pinched- probably aggravating his already sensitive bruises. He makes small noises whenever Dean moves, like he's terrified to be alone. And that makes Dean feel like a total ass. 

Anna approaches with a hypodermic needle that has to be as long as her arm, a tray of antiseptic wipes, and a tourniquet. She has to untangle a twig-looking appendage from all the fluffy layers in order to wipe the inside of the elbow and tie off the bicep. 

Dean waits anxiously as she roots around for a suitable vein to use. Each prod her fingers make at Sam causes the hunter to wince in sympathy. Doctors always have the fucking coldest hands. 

"Nnnnngggh.…" the moan Sam creates in the back of his throat is pitiful. His eyes roam around beneath the lids. 

"Shh. It'll be over soon." Dean whispers. It reminds him of the time that his little brother had caught the flu in fourth grade and had to spend days in the hospital. Dean had sat by his side for hours then too, reading countless books to his little learning prodigy until his voice was hoarse. 

Finally- fucking finally- she finds a vein, plunges the needle in, and empties the load. As much as Dean wants to throw her into a wall for even touching his brother, he refrains and waits until she's finished; wiping the area again once she's done and applying a sparkly bandaid. 

Sam doesn't conk out completely again immediately, which turns the hunter's brain on to defcon four. "What's wrong? Why isn't he falling asleep?" He demands after Sam continues to shake and make horrible whining noises. 

Anna strips her latex gloves off in that professional 'I-cause-people-pain-for-a-living' way that she does and shoots him a withering look. "Jesus-Mary-Joseph, Dean! Give him a minute for his circulation to get it around! I gave him a very small dose anyway because I don't want to risk it."

Dean would have thought that it was some sort of ultimate sin for an angel to use Original Godly Family (TM) as an expletive, but none of them react like they're going to be struck down for it. 

"Don-Ger-Drux."

When Cas doesn't translate, Dean speaks up: "What did he say?"

Cas sends him a slightly embarrassed look. "He's talking about Mary." And then he turns to his brother. "I'm not going to say that, Gabriel. You'll have to tell him in English if you want him to understand."

"Med-Pa-Un-Veh-Tal."

"Most things are." Cas agrees with whatever it is the little short-stack is saying. 

Dean looks desperately over to Anna, who's tying up the bag with discarded medical equipment. "He told a rather… dirty joke. But he doesn't want to say it in English because it's 'funnier in Enochian'." She explains. Then she looks down to Sam. "Has he quieted yet?"

He has, in fact. Sam has gone into a peaceful sleep, body lax and floppy like an overused pillow. Dean nods up at her and she smiles. He can tell that she wants to reach down and smooth a hand over Sam's bed head, but knows that she'd get her arm bitten off by Dean if she tried. 

Cas and Gabriel are arguing in their nonsense language, Cas looking more and more like he's going to throw something and the archangel just appearing tired. It isn't until the Messenger of God slumps against the side of the bed that they stop bickering. 

The irritation slides from Cas's face. For a moment he looks sad, sitting there staring at his older brother- resembling some sort of caterpillar with golden hair and a sleepy expression. Suddenly, the dark-haired angel swoops down and gathers the shorter man up like a blushing bride. 

"If you Ged-Val-Fam, you coulda Drux-Teh." Gabriel mumbles. 

Cas rolls his eyes with so much fucking sass. Dean wonders if he learned that from him, and if he should try to be a better role model. "He is still quite… encumbered by sleep."

Dean smirks. "Yeah. I can see that."

"Pal-Don… V… Veh…"

"I shall move him to the couch so that you and Sam may have peace."

Cas carries his older brother across the room, Anna following along dutifully. She pauses in the door frame long enough for the hunter to see Cas dump the archangel rather unceremoniously onto the cushions in the living room. 

The red-headed angel turns. "He may not wake for several more hours. And even then, he'll be very out-of-it." She informs the older Winchester. "We'll be just out here. Call if you need anything."

When she closes the door, Dean can immediately hear her and Cas begin to speak in their native language. 

It's a rather horrifying thought: that Dean is here holding his demon-tortured brother as two angels and an archangel argue in the next room. And Dean seems to be forming some sort of crush on one of said angels. Fuck everything. 

"What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into, Sammy?" Dean whispers. 

Sam doesn't so much as twitch in reply, but Dean supposed that's probably good. 

He scoots his nearly comatose brother into the center of the bed and un-wads the blankets from around the skeletal form so that they lay flat and toasty over Sam. 

Dean settles down again into the La-Z-Boy, laying his chest onto the mattress and folding his arms up beneath his chin. It's hardly comfortable, but he'll be here either way. 

Waiting for when Sam wakes up.


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean realizes he's fucked up. 
> 
> Have fun with this longer chapter because I left you guys hanging yesterday :) !!
> 
> What do you guys think Sammy is dreaming about right now anyway? (I'll see if I can work up a really good whump-nightmare for Dean to help him through;))

Dean doesn't know how he ended up singing Led Zeppelin's "Over the Hills and Far Away" to his comatose brother. It doesn't make a lick of sense in any universe because Dean has absolutely no vocal skills. Unless, of course, the words are being smothered in guitar music and drums and the sound of Baby's tires against the road. Then he sounds pretty damn good. 

But it doesn't really matter how he got here; what started out as humming to fill the fucking thick as custard silence has slowly progressed into belting out the whole 'Houses of the Holy' album. In the most off key, imitation of a depressed goose that he can manage. 

Well shit, just look at him. When did he turn into such a sap: singing to his little brother and holding that cold, clammy hand like Sammy will actually know the difference. Maybe he's just been repressing it his whole life ever since the first time John Fuck'n Winchester slapped him up and said "dammit, Dean! Winchesters don't cry". 

Look at him now though, crooning Zeppelin so badly its blasphemous, and letting all his emotions run naked in the woods. And if he ain't just a warm, gooey mess of salted caramel and marshmallow fluff in a La-Z-Boy right now. Suck on that, old man. 

"You sing beautifully."

Fuck. Dean snaps his jaws closed and glares at whoever just encroached upon his sanctuary. It's Anna, poised at the door with a bundle of clean bandages and expression of 'I caught you, don't try to hide' smeared on her face. 

"Lying is a sin, you know." Dean snips back at her. 

She raises one prim eyebrow. "Really? You forget, I was there when Dad gave Moses the Ten Commandments. I like Charlton Heston better than the original though."

Dean has no response for that. 

"I need to change his bandages. It's been three hours." She crosses the room and lays out her materials. "You need to get up and move before you develop… chair sores."

"I'm not leaving-"

Anna snaps on a latex glove. "Yeah, you're not. You're going into the other room." She starts to pull the blankets off of Sam's prone form. He doesn't so much as twitch. 

"I think it's pretty cozy in here, myself." Dean crosses his arms and leans back into the cushions. His body has already worn a groove into the stuffing so that it molds right to him. Just like home. Okay, he might need some air if he's starting to have those kinds of thoughts. 

Anna delivers a glare filthy enough to smite and eases Sam's jaw open with the pad of her gloved thumb. She carefully slides a thermometer under his tongue and closes his jaw again. "You should be at one hundred percent for when he wakes up." She points out, moving on to pull a pen light and pry open one chocolate puppy eye. "He's going to need you then. Right now, he probably doesn't even have a gag reflex."

Dean scowls. He would really rather not. 

…But she has a point. 

Damn it all. 

"You have thirty minutes and the door stays open." He stomps to the door. "You'd better get that sponge bath over first, cuz I don't wanna see no dicks when I get back."

She waves him off, but he still catches a glimpse of her smirk. "Pizza should be done in ten. Don't let those two monkeys in there burn it."

Dean doesn't know what she means until he gets into the kitchen. And he wonders immediately how Cas and Gabriel have not killed themselves on accident yet. 

The archangel sits precariously on a wobbly stool, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket. He has an open five pound bag of sugar in his hands as he straight up waterfalls the stuff into his open mouth. It redefines 'pour some sugar on me'. When he brings the bag down again, his cheeks are puffing with a sticky mix of granulated glucose and spit. He's even got some of it in his hair. 

Cas sits across from him in pajama pants decorated with bumble bees. He stares intensely at the phone screen in his hand, the lines on his face screaming 'I need Excedrine'. By the lack of reaction the ex-angel has to his brother guzzling white sugar, Dean guesses that this may be a regular occurrence for the both of them. 

"So… Karen is the computer wife?" Cas scrolls his finger over the phone. "The computer which is underwater. I thought you told me I could not stuff the… beeping clock in the toilet because it would cease to function."

"Well, yeah. It's a cartoon. It doesn't really have logic. Kids watch it for fun." Gabriel takes a break from the sugar to gulp chocolate sauce from the bottle. "But also, you shouldn't put the alarm clock in the toilet just because you want it to stop. We kinda need it to wake us up."

Cas looks up from the phone and the picture of Spongebob on it."Yes, I remember. 'Hit the 'off' button, Cassie!'" He uses way too many finger quotes. "Oh. Hello, Dean." 

Dean has to swallow pretty hard. Because Cas has sex hair and a smudge of maroon in the corner of his mouth. He looks honestly like a total mess of a man who rolled out of bed two seconds ago, with a rumpled Def Leppard t-shirt and his ever-present trench coat's sleeves not even on his arms. But his goddam bright blue eyes staring at Dean like he's the only person who matters. 

Dean is so fucked. 

"Hey." Dean stumbles over to the fridge, running a tired hand through his unwashed hair. He can still vaguely smell the bar on himself; he hasn't brushed his teeth in god knows how long. He'd be panicking about the state of his very unshowered body right now if he thought that Cas put any stock into that sort of thing. He doesn't, by the look of his five o' clock shadow. 

The fridge is mostly empty, one little lightbulb flickers pathetically in the back. There's no food that Dean can make out, only jars upon jars of what looks like highly concentrated piss. Dean takes one and unscrews the lid. "Um… what's this?" He sniffs it. 

"Unee." Gabriel says around a mouth of sugar. 

"Honey." Cas clarifies, now inspecting an image of Mr. Krabs like he knows something is horribly wrong with it, but he can't decide exactly what. 

Dean makes eyes at the yellow sleep-pants that Cas wears. The ones with happy, black and gold bees tracing dotted lines all over them. "You got a thing for bees?"

The ex-angel drops the phone, his eyes lighting up. "Yes." Its abnormally enthusiastic for the very sober man. 

"Please. Do not get him started." The archangel interrupts, before turning around to fully face Dean. "And don't eat that either. Tell me, how's Sammy doing?"

Dean scowls and sets the jar back. "Better, now that you're not hogging all the blankets." He makes his way over to the oven. Five minutes left on the pizza. It's starting to smell really good, making the hunter's stomach burble in anticipation. He wonders if Sammy is hungry right now- he hopes not because he's only seen feeding tubes on Dr. Sexy, but they look highly uncomfortable. 

"Oh please. For your information, I was aaaaallllllllllllll up in Sammoose's weird dream." 

Dean's head snaps up. "You were- did you talk to him? Is he okay? Does he know he's safe?" The hunter is two seconds away from putting short-stack into a headlock until he spills all the jellybeans he has regarding Sam. 

Gabriel puts his hands up in surrender. Like that's going to stop Dean when he's on a rampage. "Woah. Okay, calm down. Yes, he knows he's safe. He was having a nice dream when I left." 

Dean lets out a breath that has been bottled up in his chest since the moment he found Sammy on the side of the road, begging for cash. 

"And yes, we talked some. He wasn't in much of a conversational mood. So it was mostly me." The small man scratches his nose, making sugar rain down from it. He scowls. "He was coming to, and he was in a lot of pain. So he wasn't really feeling chatty."

That makes Dean's stomach slam it's breaks. "Pain?" He grits his teeth because that bastard Crowley is so fucking lucky he beat the hell out of here or else he'd be a red streak on the ground right now. "What kind of pain? How much?"

Gabriel snorts. "What kind of pain? Pain-pain. Hurting like a bitch, if I read him right."

"Gabriel." Cas snaps. "Your sarcasm is unhelpful."

"Oh, my sarcasm is what's unhelpful right now? How about you and Mr. Tall-Beefy-and-Pissed over there not-"

The oven interrupts with a loud beep. Dean is not the only one who jumps- thank god. 

Gabriel huffs like this conversation isn't over- Dean's sure it isn't. He stalks over to the oven, the smell of crust and sauce and empty calories wafting out and turning his stomach back into a pack of hungry wolves. 

"Do not just reach in. That will be quite painful." Cas directs, nodding to himself like he's just saved Dean's life. 

The hunter snorts and wraps a cloth around his hand before going in to the box of heat and pulling out the pizza. Which draws the ex-angel out of his seat like a neodymium magnet. 

Cas is suddenly so close to Dean that he can smell the other man: faint mouthwash and arm and hammer detergent. Dean could get high off that smell. 

"It looks… unburnt." Cas peers up at the hunter with a small quirk to his lips. "Perhaps you should teach Gabriel how to accomplish this."

"Hey!"

Dean has to almost physically take his eyeballs out of his skull in order to rip them away from the ex-angel beside him. Because oh my god, did Cas just make a fucking joke? "I… um… yeah." Dean looks down-

-the fuck?

There's a slice of pizza already missing. 

He looks at Cas again. At the smear of red sauce in the corner of his mouth. "How the fuck have you already eaten some?"

Gabriel sets some paper plates at Dean's elbow and pulls himself a slice. "He ate some frozen." 

Dean's face has to be all kinds of scandalized because Cas blushes a little. "It was quite cold."

Gabriel rolls his honey-colored eyes. "No shit. I told you not to."

"It did not make any sense. When the pizza man brings it, it is ready to eat. I assumed this would be no different."

"Well, for one it was frozen. Second, you kept eating it. Even though it was frozen!"

"You informed me that it can be consumed hot and cold."

"I meant refrigerated, day-old stuff that I'm too lazy to microwave!"

Dean wonders distantly if this is what he and Sam are like; ribbing on each other for the sake of bitching. It makes his chest ache- he hopes Sammy wakes up soon. The kid had had so much trouble sleeping lately that Dean's nearly forgotten what its like to wait for his little brother to come back to the land of the living. 

"-do not blame this on the pizza man."

"Oh come on, your crush is so obvious! You let the guy into your house and let him put his number in your phone!"

"He was kind. He taught me how to use the phone. And the shower."

"Oh my god. Don't ever say that again."

Sam would have stood at the counter and turned up his nose at the pizza. He would have gone somewhere and found himself those dainty salads that he always insisted on eating. Or, Dean supposes he would have had to sit there and sip at the nutrition shake Anna made him drink. 

"-and you were being all snooty about it."

"I am an Angel of the Lord. A warrior of God. I wasn't going to be that woman's lap dog."

"You told her that you would escort her to hell!"

Dean's mind is floating, but he can't quite feel it back in. All of it is starting to hit him. He's going to have to start thinking of Sammy as he is now: this thin, taller-than-Dean, ghost of who he was when he'd packed his bag and left for college. The man with slow-healing bruises and a nose that bleeds at the drop of a hat. Lips that split when he tries to smile and bones that shake as he tries to hold himself together after a nightmare like he's been denied help so many times he's stopped asking for it-

Wait. 

Dean stares at the pizza in front of him blankly. That sinking feeling of 'I've done fucked shit up again' is settling low in his gut with the weight of a bowling ball. 

"Hey, Dean-o. The pizza's not gonna blink first. You might as well give up and get you a slice." 

Dean rips his eyes away to look at the archangel, munching on his own piece. He's still coated in sugar. "What?" Gabriel wrinkles his nose. "You look like you just found out what is sex is."

The track of 'oh shit' playing on loop in Dean's head finally stops when Cas speaks up. "Dean? Are you alright?" No. No, he's not alright. 

Dean can barely force the words out. Because this means that he's fucked up. Again. At this point, he should probably just shoot himself. "Sam has nightmares." Dean chokes. His throat is suddenly swelling closed and his spit is too thick and he. Can't. Fuck'n. Breathe. "What- what if… did we just… what if he's stuck now? Can he wake up if he needs to?"

Cas looks at Dean with wide eyes. They flicker to Gabriel, who has gone deathly still, pizza still half way to his mouth. The archangel looks slightly nauseous. "He… it was a nice dream when I left." The words are limp like a flagged erection. 

"Gabriel." He wets his lips and prays. Dean fuck'n prays a litany of 'please' to whoever may be listening. "Do you know who Jess is?"


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean discovers the TRUTH :D :D and nearly kills Gabe in the process. 
> 
> This fic's updates may slow a little bit here because I started another one (which you guys should totally check out if Destiel is your thing ;)). But I'll try to make the chapters longer to compensate!

"…Who?"

"Jess. Probably short for Jessica. Sam knew her at college. He dreams about her at night, and it sure as hell ain't a wet dream."

Gabriel sets his plate down carefully. "I… have no idea who you're talking about." The gaze that he levels at Dean is full of lies. 

And that makes Dean so fucking mad. 

He narrows his eyes until they're slits of pure, unadulterated rage. Because he doesn't give a flying fuck about whether or not this vertically stunted little pimp is an archangel or not. He's standing in between Dean and Sam. So really, it's only a matter of time before he snaps. 

Suddenly, Gabriel is beneath him, back pressed to the chipped linoleum floor. Dean's hand is wrapped firmly around his throat, fingers digging into the flesh there like persistent, muscular worms. His other hand is raised in a white-knuckled fist, ready to pound the shit out of an archangel. His mouth opens, the words pouring out don't even sound like English to his own ears. 

Dean would love to stop. But he's had one hell of a day. And if this pint-sized dick does not spill right this second, he's going to be nothing but a squashed bug. 

"Dean! Dean, stop!" Cas's voice trickles through the haze of red. He's tugging on the hunter's arm and boxing his ears but it's not doing any good; only making Dean madder. 

"Fuck off!" It comes out as a roar. "You tell me or I swear to God, I will rip your throat out!" 

Which Dean realizes is unreasonable, seeing as Gabriel can't breathe, let alone dish out some of Sammy's dirty secrets. He's just there, choking under Dean's grasp as the sweat from their contact makes the sugar-dusting into a sticky mess. 

"K-k-k-k…"

The hunter releases some of the pressure. Gabriel gasps raggedly and coughs until his face is red. "God, what the fuck!" His voice is hoarse. 

"Don't lie to me you bastard! Don't you. Ever. Lie. About. Sam!" It's bubbling up from that hot coal in his stomach. Dean can't stop it. He wants to, but at this point, the filly's already out of the stable. 

Cas lands a sucker punch that manages to knock his head to the side. He can hear Anna's footsteps as she drops everything and races to interrupt the fight. Her hands are in his hair, yanking it back and trying to rip him away from her brothers. 

Dean lets himself be pulled back. Cas drags Gabriel out from underneath his hands. 

"W-w-what…?" Gabriel hacks a cough. "Jesus, man." His hand hovers over his throats like he wants to touch it but the pain is too much. A bright red handprint already swelling is emblazoned there. 

"Dean! Get a fucking grip!" Anna tugs him back by his scalp. 

"He knows something! He knows about Jess!" 

"DEAN!" Cas's voice is booming. "Stop."

In that moment, Dean can see the angel within the man. The proud warrior who commanded armies and made the ground tremble beneath his feet. Dean stops struggling. 

Cas is heaving, hands clenched tight in Gabriel's shirt. "Stop. Gabriel believes that it is not his story to tell. That is fine. I will tell it then."

There's a cold, somber look to him. As though Cas has hollowed himself out for this. 

"Then tell me."

The way that the ex-angel rubs a hand over his face speaks of a tiredness that Dean knows all too well. "Jess…" he begins. "Jessica Moore." Gabriel flinches a little. "She was Sam's girlfriend at Stanford."

Dean chokes on air. Because he knows the meaning of the word 'was'. That's like a death sentence to a hunter. "She died." He whispers. 

Part of him wants to scream for Sam to suck it up. She was just a girl after all. They encounter dead innocents all the time as hunters- getting over death is part of the job. But another part of Dean breaks a little for his brother. Sam must have thought that all the tragedy was over, only to have the door to his apple pie life slammed in his face. 

And Sammy, being the fucking martyr that he is, would think- "He thinks it's his fault, doesn't he?"

Cas has a steely gaze when he meets the hunter's eyes again. "It is."

Dean's eyes nearly fall out of his skull. He was expecting a lot of things, but not for Cas to go and smack Sammy down like a fly on the wall. "Excuse-"

"She died." Gabriel interrupts. He's cradling his neck gingerly between his hands, testing the bruises forming there. Dean can already make out a solid handprint on the sun kissed skin. "She died like Mary Winchester."

The air leaves Dean in a great whoosh. Because a death like Mary Winchester's is a horrible thing. And if Sam had seen it…. All amounts of horrid things flood the older Winchester's mind. The smell of burning flesh and the heat of the fire and the gleam of blood on the floor, pooling beneath the suspended body-

It's taken Dean decades to get over the little that he was able to see of his mother's death all those years ago. For Sam to try to go at it alone…. 

"The house burned." Cas says. "As well as all of his possessions. He had nothing but the clothes on his back when he left."

Dean's head is pounding. Dread is twisting its cold fist in his stomach. "He coulda called…" he mutters. "He shoulda called me- called Dad. Bobby… why didn't he call-"

He fucked up. He's ducked up this bad. Oh god, Dean already felt like shit about the whole situation, but now- just fuck. He had one job. And he's fucked it up beyond repair now. 

But at least he has a shred of luck left: he makes it to the sink before he vomits.


	41. Chapter 41

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's dream. 
> 
> Sooo… I tried to go easy on Sam. But heh, that didn't work. At all. But lest I ruin the surprise of it, so if the torture chapter kinda wasn't your thing, DEFINITELY don't read this one. There's a note at the end of the chapter for what you missed if you do decide to skip- no shame in not wanting to watch Sammy get hurt. 
> 
> Also, you can blame Animal Planet for the graphic description ;)
> 
> But anyway, have fun reading this longer chapter, you can yell at me for being so awful to Sammy in the comments ;) :)

Sam is lying in a pool of hot, sticky blood and listening to Led Zeppelin. 

The smell of iron and that undeniable musk of something human lays over the air heavily. It's making it hard to breathe, but so long as he keeps his grip on "Over the Hills and Far Away", then it's not so bad. He can feel the blood beneath him mixing with his cold sweat and making for a disgusting cocktail of fluids that tingles over his nerves. 

Sam would really, really like to leave now. But his limbs are thick and heavy like they've been sat on by elephants, which leaves him laying there; arms out and legs spread. He feels vulnerable and weak, and that makes his stomach wring itself out over and over every two seconds. 

When the sun rises into the sky, it makes everything turn shades of red and bakes the blood around him. The grass is needles at his back, prickling against his skin. His head is disoriented and confused and he can't fuck'n move, no matter how hard he tries. 

Led Zeppelin stops. 

Sam starts to panic. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and bares his teeth and tries to move his weighted sack of a body out of Body Fluid Central. 

Not so much as a fuck'n twitch. 

Sam wonders if God has his thumb pressing down on him right now- keeping him still. Maybe He wants Sam to take stock of all the shit things that he's ever done, and how they all seem to end with him in a pool of blood. But if that is God's Plan, then the Man Upstairs can fucking stop already because Sam gets it. He gets that he's a total fuck-up on too many levels to count. And now he's kind of pissed, because fuck it, this is so unnecessary. 

Sam doesn't need to be told that he belongs in Hell. He was the one who purchased the first-class ticket, after all. 

A laugh rings over the empty field. Sam goes from insulting to begging every deity that may exist out there to please let that not be Jess. His heart is already in danger of pounding so hard it breaks straight out of his chest. Please, he can't do this right now. Don't make him do this. 

Which is moot point. He doesn't even know why he tries anymore. 

His skin above the blood prickles with tiny spots of pain. His head pounds with a vengeance- vision fluttering black around the edges like an old film. The sun blasts its heat and light at him on full blast; he thinks he may catch on fire himself here soon. It's the Play of Life, starring God and Satan, with Sam Winchester as the Burning Bush. 

He always gets stuck with the shitty role. 

It takes Sam far too long to realize that the black around his vision isn't him; you can't pass out in a dream after all. It's the midnight wingtips of crows. He only has a few seconds to wonder what the fuck crows are doing, before-

"Good morning, Veitnaaaaaammm!"

What the actual fuck?

Someone crunches the grass next to his head. "Heyo, Sammy! How's it goin?" It's a man. Why the fuck is it a man? Who the hell is this? "Haha. See, I am the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Woooo!"

The pain on Sam's skin increases, the little pin points becoming larger He can sort of hear the crows chattering, the whisper of their wings ruffling. Sam swallows hard. His throat is thick and scratchy. 

"Well, not really. That would be cool though. That was my favorite ghost because all of the ominous pointing and subtext 'bitch, please' that that spirit did. Classic."

Sam can't turn his head. He can't see who is talking his ear off. He really wants to know. But the importance of that fades away with the burning in his limbs. The crows get louder. 

"Damn, kid. This is one fuck'n dream. I couldn't have made it better myself."

Sam presses his eyes down as far as he can see with his head in this position. From there, he sees a black bird raise its head and stare back with one beady eye. It tilts its head. 

"See, I kinda specialize in nightmares and just wow. You've really outdone yourself on this one." The bird has something hanging from its beak. Sam squints. "All that you're missing is a dead girlfriend. Or, hey! Maybe a dead mommy? How about an angry daddy? Man, you have so many things to choose from; I'm jealous."

It's a piece of flesh. Bloody and ripped. It swings blood when the crow moves. Sam pushes his head up a little, even though it feels as if the blood has grown claws and is trying to keep him in place. 

"Hey, I especially like the crows. Nice touch."

They're eating him. Oh god, it's a whole flock of black winged vermin perched on his limp body. Their taloned feet pinch his skin and their beaks peck holes into his muscles and organs as they rip out bits. Sam wants to scream. He tries so hard, panic overwhelming everything else as he thrashes against those invisible bonds. Nothing but empty air whistles from his open throat. He can't move. 

Wake up, wake up, wake up!

"Aw, look at you! Such a fighter!" Calloused fingers grab his chin and jerk it to the right. Lustful, greedy eyes meet his. 

The man looks homeless-and Sam would know. He has peeling, raw blisters on his temples, a budding five 'o clock shadow, and sandy, unwashed blonde hair. But he has that cruel twist to his mouth that some people have when they pass Sam on the street. The smile that says he knows he's better than the ex-hunter. 

"Haha! Look at you! Still got some fire power!" The man pats Sam's cheek, too hard to be friendly. "You and me, Sammy, we are going to be best friends." He whispers 'best friends' like a creepy perv. Fuck'n great. 

Sam tries to scream again. "Oops. Nope. No talkee for you, Mr! You're still asleep, remember?" The man pinches Sam's cheeks while the ex-hunter's mouth is still open in a silent cry. It pinches the thin skin there down into his molars until the soft, pink inner walls begin to bleed. 

"Hahaha!" Sam's head is shaken roughly from side to side, sloshing his brain around in his skull. The man grins toothily at him, overjoyed with how much power he has. The guy could do literally anything that he wants with Sam. 

He probably will. 

"Here, take a look." The man pulls Sam up by the hand on his chin and another one which finds its way to the ex-hunter's hair. He can't exactly sit on his own, with his body like a sack of rice, so he slumps over and lets the man keep his head up by the scalp. 

Most of the black birds fly away once they're dislodged from his stomach. The ones still picking their way through his leg muscles and tendons only pause briefly to look at him before they go back to their task. Sam can feel them- their tiny, sharp beaks as they pound a hole into the skin and root around for a few seconds before they select a tendon or bit of muscle. When they go to rip it off, the birds have to anchor their bloody claws deep in his skin, clamp down hard, and flap their wings a few times to get enough force for the tear. 

The worst part is watching the creatures eat it when they're done. He's never wanted so badly to throw up. Sam takes everything back; he would rather be facing Jess right now. 

"Nah. Your girlfriend's ghost is getting like an old record. Why have her when you can have me?" The man yanks Sam close and lays a very wet and slobbery kiss on his cheek. The sandpapery almost-beard chafes his skin as the man shoves their faces together and inhales deeply. "Mmmm… you smell like… Demon Blood." A large, hot tongue flattens over Sam's sharp cheekbone and licks a strip up his skin. It's so fucking nasty. Sam wants to die. The guy laughs and releases him, letting the ex-hunter sway and fall back into the blood with a splash. 

Blondie flops down on his back beside him, just on the outskirts of the pool. Some more of the crows come back and pluck hot pockets of pain into his body. "See, you and me, Sammy? We were made for each other. We are meant to be together." Some crows take to dismembering his fingernails, taking the tips of his fingers in their beaks and wiggling and yanking and pulling while others peck around the joints. Now that's the power of teamwork. 

"I know, I sound like some crazy ex. Like Jess! But on some serious drugs." There's a bird playing with- if he remembers anatomy class right- his Sartorius muscle. It runs diagonally over his thigh. The longest muscle in the body. And now there's a crow strumming it like Jimmy Paige. 

Only Sam Winchester has these sorts of problems. 

"And since Anna-banana out there in Wake-Up Land injected you with some Niquil," the man thumps Sam's chest like a college frat boy "you and I have got hours to spend together."

Suddenly, the blonde homeless man pushes up and swings a knee over the ex-hunter. Which lands him straight over Sam, straddling his prone form. Not that there's anything straight about that. 

"Sooo… what should we do?" The man scared off the crows plucking Sam's fingers, but the ones on his lower legs are damn determined. "We got so much tiiiiiimmmeeee!" He throws out his arms dramatically. "Hmmm… we could play…" Sam has known this man for less than ten minutes, but he has no desire to know what the guy means by playing. "We could feed the birds- tuppence a bag, of course. But it looks like you've started that without me." The man grins. "We could film our own porno!" He grinds down a little with a roll of his hips. 

Fortunately- or unfortunately- Sam is so tall that his hips aren't beneath the man's crotch, they're a few inches below. The guy is more or less grinding into a pecked wound around Sam's belly button. 

"Ooh! I know!" The man stops rocking his hips. "I could tell you a story!"

Sam would rather film the porno. 

"Oh, don't be like that. It's an awesome story! It's about family, betrayal, bloodshed! Not really sex, because the dad doesn't condone that or whatever. But hey, still a great story!" The man sits his ass right onto Sam's open gut-wound. He can feel the sharp tailbone digging into it with a bruising force. 

"So, where do I begin…? Well, once upon a time, there was the Man Upstairs…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer shows up and is all like "yo, bitch! We are MADE for each other" (and licks Sam's face and grinds on him a little, and is a general creep)
> 
> Except Sam has no fucking clue who this guy is. 
> 
> …And writing this summary, I realize now that this whole chapter has been complete and utter whump and literally nothing else. Oh well :)


	42. Chapter 42

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean wallows in self-pity and self-hate. 
> 
> It's short cus I'm tired guys. Sorry!  
> Sam should be waking up soon though (yay) and this is kinda just a filler chapter. 
> 
> Have fun anyway, and if you like Destiel and enjoyed this fic, I recommend popping over to check out my other fic: Who Made Who (I've managed to fuck up links before so I'm not going to try. Just click on my username) :P it would mean a lot to me because you guys give awesome feedback and I don't know what I'm doing with that one:)

Dean presses ice cubes to Sam's unconscious body. They melt on contact, the resulting water slipping off of his pale skin like tears. He can almost see the steam coming from his brother's skeleton as it's laid bare in the bed. Dean can't help but wonder where all of that heat is even coming from. Sam's a fucking ghost. 

The hunter has honestly never felt like a shittier human being than he does now, staring at his beaten brother. He has no fucking idea how all of this went straight to hell as it did, and worse, he has no idea how to reign it back in from said hell. So sue him, he's still a little hung up on the fact that he let his baby brother down so fuck'n badly. It wasn't just that he hadn't been there for Sam when he needed him most; it was that he hadn't been there time and time again.

And if Sammy doesn't wake the fuck up here soon, Dean may just take his gun out to the back lot and put the world and himself outta misery. 

Anna flies to the thermometer when it beeps, pulling it out of Sam's lax jaws and jotting the number down on her growing pile of scrap paper. At this point, she should start a file cabinet full of Sam's medical records. "101.2. It's going down at least." She flips a cold compress over. 

Dean can't feel his damn fingers anymore. He slides the chunk of ice into the dip of Sam's collar bones. A round, purple bruise rests there, mocking him. "I thought you said that Gabriel took out the fever." Because it sure as fuck doesn't feel like Gabe banished the fever: Sam's skin is hot as summer asphalt. 

Anna flicks her eyes to him briefly. "He took out the infection and early stages of kidney failure. The pneumonia. The budding UTI. Sealed the lashes on his back so that they're just bruises now." She puts her stethoscope to the brittle chest. "Gabriel has helped more than you know."

Dean sighs and rubs his face with a dripping hand. "I know, I know. I shouldn't have tackled him." He takes another ice cube and presses it to his brother's jugular, rubbing it in a circle so no one area gets too cold. 

"I'm not saying that he didn't need to be tackled." She prods at a sharp cheekbone and the bridge of his nose. Anna must catch the startled look he gives her because she laughs. "Don't let his ego get to you too much. He's not god. And Castiel may be wise, but he has a bad case of repressed hero-worship for Gabe."

Sam makes a little snuffling noise through his nose, like he too thinks that's funny. Dean hopes whatever dream his little brother's having is. He's praying to the whole of Heaven for that right now. 

"Sounds like you don't like him." Dean mutters. He slips his icy hand into Sammy's hot, clammy palm and grips it tight. He can't help the stupid hope that somehow, his brother can feel it and know that it's him. He can't squeeze too hard, though. Some fucker did a number on Sammy's nail beds. 

Which makes Dean want to curl up in a corner and die. 

"I like him, in my own way." Anna shrugs. "He's my brother, but I wouldn't call us close. Not like him and Castiel, of course."

Dean turns another cooling cloth that's been pressed to Sam's lower belly. That spot seems to be particularly warm, so he folds a row of ice into the cloth. "What is with those two, anyway. Talk about a love-hate relationship."

Anna snorts. "That would be because Gabriel raised Castiel."

Dean frowns. "Raised-raised him? Like I did for Sammy?" Which happens to be just about the only thing that Dean is proud of doing right now. At least his brother turned out to be one hell of a fighter with a better heart beating in his chest than Dean could ever hope to have. 

"Yeah, kinda." Anna presses the button on the thermometer again. "But, see, usually the baby angels are raised by Naomi in the nursery." 

Dean tries to get the image of a butt-ass naked baby Cas with fluffy wings and a halo out of his head, but can't. 

"But Castiel got out into the gardens when he wasn't supposed to once. Gabriel found him and well…" she shrugs. "Two peas in a pod, after that."

Dean rubs his thumb over Sammy's loose knuckles. They're rough and calloused. "So what happened?" He knows what 'two peas' look like, and that sure as hell ain't Cas and Gabe. Dean can hear them bitching at each other over a remote in the other room now. 

Not that he and Sam never bitched, but those two angels in there do it hard-core. Complete with shattering plates and threats of incineration. 

Anna looks at the hunter with somber gray eyes. "Lucifer tried to start war. Gabriel couldn't take it; to see his family ripped apart from the inside out like that." She plays with the edge of her paper. "I don't blame him. It was awful. He hauled his ass outta heaven and didn't look back. Left behind a very upset Castiel." She glances at the door. "And then Cas had a falling out with Raphael. And he quite literally fell."

Sam snuffles again, eyes flicking around beneath their lids. The thermometer beeps. Anna shakes herself immediately, slipping easily back into her doctor mode. 

"101. Flip the compresses and keep with the ice. He should be waking up anytime soon." 

Dean dutifully takes another ice chunk and lays it in the dip beneath Sam's sternum. Well, less of a dip, more like a sharp cliff edge. 

"He's going to be fine, you know." Anna says softly. 

Dean can't meet her eyes. "Yeah. I hope so."


	43. Chapter 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's poor nuts, to be honest.
> 
> This chapter took a while, writer's block has been a bitch :(
> 
> You should also probably look up the Cremaster Muscle before you start reading. 
> 
> Have fun anyway :)

He has to wake up soon. He has to. And that's what Sam is going to repeat to himself like a sacred mantra until he does. 

The field is starting to bleed colors again, dripping in that crayon-in-a-hot-car kind of way that only dreams and Salvador Dali paintings can. So it's got to be about time. Then again, his train of thought is a little off the tracks right now; he has no concept of time or… anything else. 

Because everything hurts like a bitch. 

And as it turns out, crows tend to be intelligent little bastards. Even in Sam's red-and-bloody dream world. 

As soon as the blonde homeless dude had rolled off of him, the crows had taken his place. Sinking their little claws and beaks into the ex-hunter's skin and tendons, and strutting all over his ravaged nerve endings like it's the fucking red carpet. 

Sam imagines that he must look like a shredded carcass on Animal Planet by now; bones bared, muscles bloody and juicy. Just a meat sack really, as the birds go to work with brain-surgeon precision, shearing his skin away. Getting to all the delectable parts; him being the diamond mine of tasty bits that he is. 

And Sam knows it's a dream, he knows it's not real- none of it. The pain would be worse if it was. Everything is too much of a throb rather than a sting for crows to actually be eating him alive. Except he's not too sure about the guy lying next to him anymore. 

He's ninety percent sure the man is Lucifer. The fallen archangel who started this shit-storm in the first place. Then again, with all the pain, Sam's not very lucid. His thoughts are like refrigerated cake batter. 

Honestly, Sam had expected the Prince of Darkness to be some sort of hulking beast with black, inky depths and heart stopping horror. The embodiment of thunder and terror. Instead, he looks like the creepy janitor who everyone thinks has dead kids in his trunk. 

Only Sam Winchester would be stuck in a hellish dreamscape with Satan himself. Especially when Satan has taken it upon himself to sing Def Leppard's 'Photograph' off key. It's only made worse by the blood lapping at Sam's ears and an intense ringing. 

The crows don't seem to mind really, no they actually enjoy the music. Unlike Sam, who is a few notes away from begging the birds to peck at his eardrums instead of his intestines and put him out of his damn misery. 

"Ooooh look what you've done to this rock 'n roll cloowwnn!"

A crow latches onto Sam's Cremaster Muscle: the part that stretches between his sharp hips and connects to his side muscles. It tries to rip it out, only to find that one end is still very much attached, so the bird keeps getting yanked back like a bungee cord. A very dully painful bungee cord that makes his nuts throb. 

"I don't want your PHOOOTTOOOGRRAAAAPPHH! I don't need your PHHOOOTTOOOOOGRAPPHH! All I got is your PHOTOGRAAAPPPHH!"

Lucifer throws his arms out in bravado. Sam grits his teeth until he hears something crack. 

"I wanna touch YOOUU!" And the homeless man reaches out to run a finger over Sam's lips, down his chin, and to the top of his larynx. He digs in with his blunt fingernails there until those nerve endings scream louder than the ones on his guts. 

It makes the ex-hunter cough. The birds glare at him like he's interrupting an important meeting. The one trying for the Cremaster Muscle finally gets a friend to help peck at the attached end; the embodiment of 'there's-no-I-in-Team'. 

"Oh come on, Sammy!" Lucifer croons. "Don't be like that." He takes a limp shoulder and drags it up until he's lying on his side. The crows dig in harder to stay attached and squawk indignantly. Blood seals over one side of Sam's face from the pool he's laying in. It smears his vision crimson and clogs his nose with the rank smell. 

"C'mon, Sammy. We haven't finished our bonding time yet!"

They probably would have by now if Lucifer hadn't stopped to fuck'n sing like a wounded hound dog. Sam just coughs again though, his muscles completely unresponsive. 

"Aww. Was Def Leppard not your tune? How about The Struts?"

Sam will hereby hand deliver his soul, wrapped in a pretty pink bow, to however wants it, as long as he doesn't have to listen to another song by the raving lunatic with no sense of Personal Space. 

The birds finally snap off the Cremaster and fly it over to a patch of grass behind the fallen archangel. Sam can see it in living color as the crows start to inhale the long string. He hopes they don't Lady-and-the-Tramp it. 

"All that rock 'n roll music that Dean likes." 

Sam flinches at his brother's name. It makes his heart thump a little, because he would give anything for Dean to be here and yank this son of a bitch off of him and put a few bullets in some birds. 

"Is Dean even still around?" Lucifer wonders out loud. "I mean, he's gonna get up and leave at some point, right? Soon as Daddy calls him back." 

Sam tries to focus on the birds. That's actually easier to do than pay attention to the devil beside him. Lucifer lets his shoulder go, and Sam flops back into the puddle with a splash of hot blood. The crows don't like that. 

"You know, I'm not all completely here in the dream with you," the man tells him "So I happen to know that Dean-o has already talked to Papa Bear. Today, in fact."

Sam jerks a little. A crow nibbles at the fleshy part beneath his sternum, a wiggling little sting. Hot blood paints his vision in deep red. He wants to wake up now. He wants it to be over. 

"You know he's gonna leave you." Lucifer whispers. He leans close, like a little girl whispering a secret. "You know he's gonna do it. He always does it. Always leaves you." He pulls on Sam's shoulder again, fingers digging into the skin and bone there. He clicks his tongue. "Look at you. Wasting away like this. So pathetic, really."

And then he slams the ex-hunter face first into the puddle. 

It burns with a bright, intense pain. 

And Sam wakes up kicking.


End file.
